Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the member also for her question, because she has been a champion for job creation, and in the first round of the Regional Development Australia Fund, important initiatives were a gain for her electorate, particularly the Ballina airport and the Lismore cultural centre, which will see significant job opportunity.

I am asked this question in a broader context, and today's figures are unequivocally good news on the employment front: 46,000 additional jobs created, 760,000 since this government was elected, with Treasury projections that say that, by 2020, we will more than double that—in other words, that amount twice over. Unemployment has come down and the participation rate has gone up. But the question that I am asked goes to what we have been doing to facilitate this fantastic outcome, and that is, we have been investing in those things that drive economic growth and create jobs. We have been investing in the infrastructure of the nation, not the least of which is the broadband rollout for the nation which, at its peak, will be employing 37,000 people. In addition to that, we have invested heavily in the skills base and education base of this nation, with the biggest infrastructure investment ever in the history of the country, driven when the Prime Minister was the education minister, and that is a fantastic legacy upon which we have to build.

We are in the middle of the greatest economic transformation the world has ever known. The opportunity that is growing in Asia—in India, in China, in South-East Asia—is what we have got to capitalise on. And the infrastructure that we put in place helps us do it.

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