Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Indi for her question. She is absolutely right, and that has weighed heavily on our deliberations. I would say to the member for Indi that what you have just said proves that the status quo is not working. The legacy environment provided by the previous government is not working, and that is why we have rising unemployment. In your electorate, that is why—as you say—you have very high youth unemployment. That is why we have put in place mechanisms that on a larger scale are going to stimulate job creation; and the starting point is to reduce company tax for 800,000 businesses by 1.5 per cent. That is a big step forward. That will help a lot of small- and medium-sized enterprises in your electorate. Secondly, in relation to unemployment, we are giving businesses $10,000 to employ someone over the age of 50 who has been on Newstart or a Disability Support Pension—

Mr Brendan O'Connor interjecting—

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