Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Boothby for her question, and I thank her for her courage, which has been on display in this chamber each and every day, and certainly in the most recent days, but none greater than the courage she showed at the last election. When she went to that election and faced that torrent, she did so for many reasons. One of the reasons was that she believes in Australians getting into jobs, like all the members on this side. It is our great mission to continue to do everything we can to put Australians into work. As we came out of that last election, we continued to see jobs created. We'd got to the point where 1½ million jobs in total had been created since we first came to government. We wanted to keep going, but then the global pandemic struck, and it struck hard. Hundreds of thousands of Australians—a million Australians, indeed—were reduced to zero hours. This was a great devastation for our country.

But we learnt today, from the February data, that there are now more Australians in work than there were when the pandemic began. That is a comeback. That is a great Australian comeback, and we've done it the Australian way. What that means is: it has been the tenacity and the endurance of Australians, who have stayed in jobs and kept jobs open to Australians and have seen themselves through this terrible pandemic and recession. So, today, the 88,700 jobs created in February will take us back across that line—

See this speech in context