Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

That was in December 1992—and guess who was then the minister for employment in Australia? The minister for employment in Australia was none other than the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Brand, when we had the highest level of industrial disputation in Australia.

The member for Hasluck asked me about the impact in terms of his electorate. I can reveal that the unemployment rate for his electorate in the March quarter of this year—the latest figures on the electorate breakdown of the unemployment rate—was 4.3 per cent. I spoke about the time when we had the highest level of industrial disputation. The unemployment rate in the electorate of Hasluck at that time—again, when the Leader of the Opposition was the minister for employment in Australia, responsible, one would have hoped, for creating jobs but indeed, as it turned out historically, responsible for destroying jobs in Australia—was 10.9 per cent. I say to the member for Hasluck and, through him, to the constituents of the seat of Hasluck in Western Australia—

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