Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

What an education the last 18 months has been for me—a fresh-faced young senator coming into this chamber and finding out what politics is really about. What politics is really about, as Labor sees it, is repeating the same tired words over and over and over. But that does not make them right. Senator Chisholm has just told us how he repeatedly talks about the same things, and he does. He does. He repeatedly talks the same tired rhetoric about how only Labor can rectify jobs plans and jobs in the future, but it's just not true. The reason why I know that it's not true is that, at the last election, Queenslanders in particular returned the coalition government because they did not feel confident that Labor were able to provide security of jobs—and they voted for us in spades.

Australia has outperformed all major advanced nations. We had a large proportion of Australians in work before this crisis began—and I hear that some of the Greens senators don't understand that Australian jobs and Australians were in a better situation, in a stronger situation, thanks to the performance of this coalition government as we entered this crisis. We had a stronger economy. We were well positioned to be able to respond with economic plans such as JobKeeper and JobSeeker. I think we all remember that time, March last year, when we went into lockdowns, as uncertainty swept the nation, and how grateful we were to have the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, and the Prime Minister and the rest of the cabinet respond so quickly and so strongly with programs that meant that people knew that they still had a roof over their head, food on the table and a sense of security, as we entered the greatest pandemic since the Spanish flu.

I just want to go through some of the recovery numbers, though, because, again, Labor doesn't seem to appreciate the extraordinary resilience of our economy and the jobs and the businesses around the nation. I continue to talk about the strength of small business in this country, how hard they work, how much they put on the line and, now, how they're responding out of this difficult time. These improvements have been broad. Across Australia, we have more than half a million businesses employing more than two million Australians graduating off JobKeeper, and that was just to the end of December. In New South Wales, 1.2 million employees received payments over the first phase of JobKeeper, compared to 490,000 over the second phase. That's a fall of 60 per cent. In Victoria, expectedly, it is a lower number. There is only a fall of 44 per cent, reflecting the continuation of snap closures of the state. But, in Queensland, the fall has been 64 per cent, and in my city of Townsville there has been a 72 per cent reduction—a 72 per cent reduction!—of the number of businesses and employees who were on JobKeeper from the end of September to the end of the December quarter. Cairns, expectedly, is lower than that, at 55 per cent, due to the international tourists they had previously who are not able to come. Central Queensland is down 75 per cent. These are extraordinary numbers, and they demonstrate the strength of our mining, resources and agricultural industries. The Gold Coast is down 59 per cent, and the Mackay-Whitsunday region is down 71 per cent.

One of the other things that Labor continues to speak about over and over again is the lack of secure, well-paid jobs—particularly for young people. Right across Queensland, we have job vacancies, particularly in apprenticeship roles, that lead to well-paid and secure jobs, yet Labor does not seem to be aware of this. It's one more example of them living, potentially, all the time in Canberra—certainly not out in the regions of Queensland, where I'm from.

I am absolutely delighted to finish on the fact that JobKeeper in retail trade has fallen by 68 per cent, and I applaud all the butchers out there who are back in the game thanks to people eating more food.