Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator the Hon. Eric Abetz, representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Will the minister update the Senate on the latest employment figures? How is the Howard government acting to further drive down unemployment in this country? Is the minister aware of any alternative policies, particularly in light of the backflip by the Leader of the Opposition, the Hon. Kim Beazley, with respect to AWAs over the weekend?

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Barnett for his question and acknowledge his longstanding interest in creating employment in this country and especially in our home state of Tasmania. I am pleased to inform the Senate that the latest employment figures reveal that Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to just 4.9 per cent—the lowest in 30 years. Fifty-five thousand eight hundred new full-time jobs were created in May, meaning that over 1.8 million new jobs have now been created since the Howard government came into office. This is on top of the 22,700 full-time jobs created in April.

If I recall correctly, and I am sure Senator Marshall will be able to assist, a prediction was made some time ago that 77,000 new jobs would be created as a result of the Keating government’s job-destroying unfair dismissal laws. Can I just note that, by my calculations, with the 55,800 new full-time jobs created in May and the 22,700 created in April—and I accept that this is based on my state school education—78,500 new full-time jobs have been created since Work Choices was legislated. While it is perhaps too early to claim that the removal of these laws is the reason for this jobs growth, you would have to admit there is a strong circumstantial case, especially when you consider that for 20 months the unemployment rate in this country hovered between five and 5.3 per cent.

So what was the circuit breaker that allowed the unemployment rate to break through that vital psychological barrier of five per cent? The Financial Review editorialised on this. They talked about the alternative explanations, and then they said:

The alternative, that under Work Choices employers can create jobs without fear of being held to ransom by ... unfair dismissal actions, might even ... be considered.

I would suggest to those opposite that they might like to consider that very sensible proposition.

I was asked about alternative policies. As Senator Barnett indicated in his question, Mr Beazley, having said he would rip up our laws and then that he would consider workplace agreements, has now done a backflip yet again. He is now going to rip them up. So what is Labor’s policy? It is simple. It is rip up, roll over and roll back. First of all, they will rip up the laws, then they will roll over to the unions and then they are going to roll back to one million Australians unemployed.

That is the shameful thing about Labor’s policy. They know where it will take Australian workers. It will take Australian workers back to the scrapheap of unemployment. With over 500,000 people now on Australian workplace agreements, Mr Beazley and the Labor Party have promised that they will rip up 500,000 individual workplace agreements in this country. Each time we have done something for the workers, be it industrial reform or tax reform, those opposite have opposed it, claiming it would create further unemployment when in fact unemployment has decreased. We are the friends of the workers. We put the workers first. Whereas those opposite put the trade unions first, second and third, we put the workers first. (Time expired)