Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Edwards for his question. Like those on this side of the chamber, we are delighted to be part of a government that is focusing on restoring the economy to what it used to be under the former Howard government and, at the same time, ensuring that we create jobs. In terms of job creation under this government, since coming to office over 300,000 jobs have been created. And the good news for Australians is that more Australians are in work than ever before. In terms of full-time employment and part-time employment, they are both at record highs.

In terms of what the government has done to facilitate job creation, the first thing that we did was, of course, we removed unnecessary taxation burdens like Labor's carbon tax and mining tax because we on this side of the chamber know that they were weapons, quite literally, of mass destruction when it came to creating jobs in Australia. We have also, as Senator Sinodinos has articulated, been responsible for signing up not one, not two but three landmark free trade agreements with our Asian neighbours—China, Japan and Korean. In terms of the job creation potential that those free trade agreements give us, we are looking at almost 9,000 jobs per year, and we can create up to 178,000 jobs by the time those agreements come into full force in 2035. This is a government that knows that job creation needs to be at the forefront of our policy agenda and that is exactly what we look at when we are implementing policy.