Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Innovation, Technology and the Future of Work) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] This is a terribly sad day for our country. The run of economic growth that started when I was in grade 6 has come to an end. Recessions deeply hurt the people that I represent in this chamber. The coalition represents our country at one of the most difficult times that we've faced, and I hope they succeed, but I'm desperately worried. The COVID economic response so far has been JobKeeper and JobSeeker, a couple of policies which have kept our country on life support. We now know that 1.4 million of our fellow Australians will be unemployed by Christmas and many more will be underemployed without the hours they need to survive. So it is time to move beyond the question of how we will help those people put food on the table to the urgent question of how we will help those people get back to work.

The coalition has spent seven years deteriorating the things that drive growth in our country. R&D spending has been hacked into, the universities are under siege, young people cannot afford to get the skills that they need, small businesses face massive supply chain issues. The government's been sowing the seeds of this problem for seven years and what are they doing about them now? Virtually nothing. They are taking away JobSeeker and JobKeeper prematurely, at a moment when unemployment will still be on the rise. That won't create jobs. It's going to lead to a deeper and longer recession and more pain for the people who I represent in this parliament. My constituents need and deserve a strategy— (Time expired)