Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am speaking today about unemployment on the Central Coast and the unemployment problems that my area has historically had. If you go back to the last recession in the 1990s, unemployment was over 15 per cent on the Central Coast. It is remarkable that,  with the impact of the global financial crisis, we have been able to keep unemployment on the Central Coast down to around 6.3 per cent. That is with a global downturn in growth whereas in 1992, when the last downturn occurred, there was global growth—there was a recession in only Australia and some other countries around the world. If we had reached the same levels of unemployment on the Central Coast as we did 1992, that would have seen a further 11,000 people out of work. Those people have been able to be maintained in work on the Central Coast. This is largely because of the government’s stimulus package.

I want to talk about two aspects of that in particular. Firstly, I want to talk about the school-building program. Over 106 schools have had new buildings constructed out of the school-building program on the Central Coast, from libraries to classrooms through to halls. Over 5,000 local staff have been employed on those 106 buildings. Bovis Lend Lease, the contractor, has told us that 98 per cent of those employed on these building sites have come from the Central Coast. That is one of the major reasons we have been able to keep unemployment lower than in previous recessions. We have not only created jobs by putting in this money but created these jobs locally. Without that, over 5,000 people would be looking outside the area for work who are not looking outside the area at the moment.

The Central Coast has one of the highest levels of people with trade qualifications, many of whom have to go to Sydney or Newcastle for work. They have been able to find work on the Central Coast. It is not just those with a trade; it is those who are looking to go into trades or are part way through a trade qualification. I recently met Rob, an apprentice who has been working at Tacoma School. He was in the third year of his apprenticeship. He had been out of work for six months but then got a job through this program. So that program has kept jobs on the Central Coast.

The second aspect I want to talk about is Kickstart. We have seen over 335 new apprenticeships brought on, compared with 210 in the previous year. It is something that this government is very proud of and, as you would have seen from the budget, we will be extending it. The idea of getting people trained in trades is very important to the youth of the Central Coast. It is a shame that the opposition have said, in their budget reply, that they will be cutting it. This government is about jobs; the opposition are about opposing issues.