Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Corangamite for his question—the first sensible one we have heard today. I know that the member for Corangamite, like all members on this side of the House, is desperately concerned that working Australians have the benefit of a strong economy and the benefit of work. We understand that, when working Australians lose their jobs, it can be a personal tragedy for them and for their families. During the global financial crisis and global recession that threatened this country, the government did what we needed to do to keep the economy going. This month we saw our unemployment rate decrease to 5.2 per cent and our GDP grow by 0.5 per cent in the March quarter. What these figures make clear—and they are particularly clear from the national accounts figures—is that our economic growth is being underpinned by stimulus spending. For example, take the Building the Education Revolution program alone, which is responsible for around a third of the economic activity in the non-residential building sector to April 2010. We should reflect one moment and compare this with the kind of unemployment rates being experienced overseas—the United States at 9.7 per cent, the eurozone at more than 10 per cent and the UK at almost eight per cent, representing a tragedy for literally millions of working people.

As Australians, we know that in times past, when there have been economic difficulties, it has taken a long time for us to climb out of those economic difficulties, particularly a long time for us to see unemployment rates start to fall. In the 1990s unemployment climbed to 10.9 per cent and long-term unemployment peaked at more than 32 per cent. It took around eight years to fall back to pre-recession levels of six per cent. In the recession of the early eighties, the unemployment rate climbed to more than 10 per cent. It took five years to fall down to the pre-recessionary levels of six per cent. In these circumstances, we should be saying to ourselves and to each other that it is great for working families that we are already seeing unemployment fall following the economic downturn brought to this country by the global financial crisis and global recession.

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