Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Molan for his question, and I know his deep interest in seeing the success of Australia, the continued success of our economy and continued jobs growth for Australians. The great news for Australians today is that jobs growth as part of our economic recovery plan has continued and is continuing strongly. Indeed, we welcome today the fact that the unemployment rate has fallen from 6.3 per cent to 5.8 per cent in February. Employment has increased by some 88,700 people to be back above its March 2020 levels. Let all senators reflect on that fact for a moment: employment in Australia is back above the levels that existed in March 2020. The overall increase in employment was driven by full-time jobs. In fact, full-time jobs grew by some 89,100.

As Senator Abetz said before, you'd expect some cheering from those opposite. You would expect some positivity from those opposite, rather than the deathly silence of the merchants of doom and gloom over there. They want the vaccine program to fail. They want the economy to fail. They just want to see negative outcomes. They don't want to celebrate in Australia's success.

We know there's a job to continue to do, and we are determined to keep doing that job. We welcome the fact that building on the first two quarters in Australia's history of back-to-back three-plus per cent growth we've seen that translate into jobs growth. That jobs growth means more opportunities for more Australians and more security for more Australian families. Our policies are designed to keep that going into the future.