Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Finance and Administration, Senator Minchin. Will the minister inform the Senate of the July labour force figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics? Is the minister aware of any independent views about policy measures required to maintain low unemployment and a strong economy?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Fifield for that pertinent question. I would indeed be happy to comment upon today’s release by the ABS of the July labour force figures. I am pleased to report that, in the month of July, more than 50,000 new jobs were created in Australia. Full-time employment rose by 27,100 jobs and part-time employment rose by 23,600. Most spectacularly of all, the unemployment rate in this country fell to 4.8 per cent—its lowest level since 1976; a 30-year low in unemployment. We have now had 35 consecutive months of unemployment below six per cent, which of course would have been unimaginable in the early 1990s when Labor presided over 11 per cent unemployment rates. Unemployment fell despite the seasonally adjusted participation rate actually increasing to its highest level on record—65 per cent. Of course, it is always interesting to compare our performance on unemployment with the performance of other developed countries, particularly in Western Europe.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do you want to do that on interest rates? Do you want to give us a comparison on interest rates?

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Sherry!

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

France’s unemployment rate is 9.1 per cent, Germany’s is 10.9 per cent, and the Euro area in general has an unemployment rate just under eight per cent. It is very interesting that the countries that stand out as having the lowest unemployment rates—the UK, the US, New Zealand and Australia—are those with the more flexible labour markets. It is noteworthy—and I ask the Labor Party to take note of this—that, in the four months since our Work Choices legislation came into effect, there have been over 159,000 new jobs created. So, far from resulting in the mass sackings that Labor assured us would occur, the removal of unfair dismissal laws has so far resulted in more jobs being created.

There is a very clear message from these results: if you do want to keep generating jobs and prosperity, you cannot do it through more regulation and more legislative restrictions on Australia. We can only do it through openness and flexibility, so we can compete with the rest of the world. Indeed, on that theme, UK Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair made a very good speech recently, talking about the need for strong leadership in what is a rapidly changing global environment.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can we have the interest rates?

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry, come to order!

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In this very important speech, Mr Blair said:

Indeed, around the world, a division is opening up, almost as pivotal as the traditional left and right, and that division is what I would characterise as: “open versus closed”.

The Labour Prime Minister went on to say:

The response to globalisation can be free trade, open markets, investment in the means of competition: education, science, technology. Or it can be protectionism, tariffs, tight labour market regulation, resistance to foreign takeovers.

That is a very important distinction that Mr Blair has drawn attention to, and I think the Labor Party should read his speech very carefully. Labor’s opposition to Work Choices, the misleading claims and the glib promises to tear up our laws really are just knee-jerk reactions to the demands of Labor’s union bosses. We know that. They ought to listen to Mr Blair. He said:

In this battle—“open versus closed”—those on the “open” side of the argument will meet fierce opposition. Yet the “closed” side of the argument in truth has nothing to offer a nation except the delusion that the tide of change can be turned back; or alternatively a weaker version of the same delusion, namely that hard choices can just be evaded.

Thankfully for our country, the coalition government has faced up to those hard choices and made the right decisions for Australia’s future.