Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

On budget night, the Treasurer spruiked that this budget was all about jobs. What a load of rubbish! Millions of Australians are out of work, and, this government expects—from its own budget figures—that 160,000 additional Australians will lose their jobs before the end of the year. But this budget does very little—in fact, next to nothing—to get those people back into stable employment. In fact, the early withdrawal of support for jobs by this government is only going to prolong the downturn for many in our community and exacerbate the pain for many who are doing it tough at the moment.

I will give you an example. I represent the electorate of Kingsford Smith, which of course, has Kingsford Smith airport in it. It's the economic powerhouse of our area—with 30,000 direct jobs. At the moment, the airport is on its knees. A couple of weeks ago, I met with a delegation of Qantas workers who had recently been sacked by the airline—2,500 loyal, hardworking Qantas employees, who had been sacked by our nation's carrier, are having their jobs contracted out to a foreign corporation for lower wages and conditions. This is corporate immorality at its worst. And what does this government do to support those Qantas workers? Zilch—absolutely nothing. There is no support for them whatsoever in this budget.

Many of those that I met with are older workers. Four of the employees that I met with had more than 20 years service for Qantas. A couple of them said to me, 'Aviation is all that I know.' They're in their late 50s and early 60s, and they were asking me, 'What support is there for me from this government to get me back into the workforce?' I had to say to them, 'Unfortunately, for older workers like yourselves, there is nothing in this budget to support you.' So I ask the government, on behalf of those Qantas workers and the hundreds of thousands of other elderly workers in our community: what are you going to do to support them to get them back into work as quickly as possible?

The government will say, 'Oh, we've got the JobMaker hiring credit.' It comes with a $4 billion price tag, but it's only available for those workers under the age of 35. Of course, we know that older workers fall back onto JobSeeker, but the government, again, plans to reduce the rate of JobSeeker back to poverty levels. So, instead of people being able to have the income to support them to get out into the workforce and try and get work, they're spending all of their time simply scrounging around trying to make ends meet and survive—instead of being out there in the jobs market.

The electorate that has the most Qantas workers of any of all of our representatives in the House of Representatives is guess who's? It's the Prime Minister's—the electorate of Cook. He has more Qantas workers than all of us, yet he refuses to meet with a delegation of Qantas workers and hear their story about how they've been affected and why they're not getting support from this government. It's an absolute disgrace. Those who've worked for this company for decades, paid taxes and helped build the credible name of this airline, are out on their backsides and on the unemployment queues with no support from this government at all from. There is no support for older workers in the budget, and I ask those opposite: what do you say to those older workers when they come asking you for support?

As I said, the government claim that they're all about jobs. But one of the groups that's been dramatically affected by the recession is women. What has this government done to support women in the workforce? Well, I'll tell you what they've done: they cut penalty rates. Who are the people who work predominantly in the hospitality and service industries? They're women. And that's the thanks that they get from the government—cuts to penalty rates, so that they take home less pay every week to support their families. That's this government's support of women in this budget. And now you've got a group within the coalition who are now walking around saying that women shouldn't get an increase in their superannuation as well. Well, that's just great—let's make it even harder for women to retire with a credible nest egg into the future by cutting the compulsory rate of superannuation for those who are doing it tough during this recession! It doesn't make any sense at all. If this government was all about jobs, it would put something in the budget that supports older workers and supports women, instead of the continuing rhetoric that it is supporting jobs when we all know it's complete rubbish.

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