Russell Broadbent (McMillan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. I refer the Treasurer to the labour force figures released this morning. How does unemployment compare with previous experience, and how do government policies on employment compare with previous policies to deal with unemployment?

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for McMillan for his question. I can inform him that in April the labour force figures showed that the unemployment rate in Australia was 5.1 per cent, marginally up from what it was in March. While part-time employment fell in the month of April by 25,900, full-time employment increased in April by 22,700. So, although we lost 25,000-odd part-time jobs, we gained 22,000-odd full-time jobs. As a consequence, although the unemployment rate rose slightly to 5.1 per cent it is still at 28- or 29-year lows.

How does this compare with previous unemployment rates in Australia? I would like to take the House back to May 1993, when the unemployment rate—and bear in mind that today it is 5.1 per cent—under a Labor government was 10.6 per cent. The then Labor government commissioned a caucus committee, chaired by the member for Lilley, to come up with ideas as to how to solve unemployment—which was then at 10.6 per cent. The chair of the caucus committee, the member for Lilley, came up with a great idea for reducing unemployment. His idea was to drop the age qualification for the age pension from 65 to 60 and reclassify everybody over 60 as retired rather than unemployed. He told the AM program on 31 May 1993 that the pension age could be lowered to 60 and they could be put on provisional age pensions. He said it was cruel for men aged 60 to 65—

Kim Beazley (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on a point of order: if we are going to go into this history, we should go into his history, when he had an inflation rate of 11 per cent per annum.

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. That is not a point of order.

Peter Costello (Higgins, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When it was pointed out that putting men aged 60 on the pension may not solve the whole of the unemployment problem, the member for Lilley said one of the other options that they had was to drop the age pension qualification age to 55 for men, to reclassify everybody over 55 as retired and to put them on the age pension. Can I say nothing would have been a more short-sighted policy, because we now know people are living longer, we now know we want them to engage in the workforce longer and we now want to encourage them to work, because the problem in Australia today is not mass unemployment. Let me make this point to the House: mass unemployment is a Labor outcome. Labor produces mass unemployment. Mass unemployment is not a problem today. Today your problem is going to be more like finding enough workers, because there are enough jobs for people to get in the Australian economy. This government does not believe in reducing the age pension and giving it to 55-year-olds so it can reclassify them out of the unemployment queues; this government believes in getting people real jobs in the real economy. And 1.7 million new jobs have been created under this government because we never gave up on the unemployed, we never accepted Labor’s solution, we never changed the definition and we gave them an opportunity in life, an opportunity they would never have got under the Labor Party.