Senate debates

Tuesday, 23 February 2021

Questions without Notice

JobSeeker Payment

2:19 pm

Photo of Anne RustonAnne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Siewert. Of course, there are a number of measures in relation to job availability and job vacancies, as Senator Cash would well know, and you only refer to one of them. But what we do know is that the most important thing that a government can do is to make sure the settings in the economy are right so businesses can create jobs. Governments don't in and of themselves create jobs. What we do is support our businesses in our economy—our big businesses, our small businesses—so that they are encouraged to employ people. That is why our hiring credits program has been put in place, because we know young people were more impacted than others by this pandemic. That's why we've got the JobTrainer program in place, because we know some of the jobs that were there pre pandemic may not come back post pandemic. But we know there is a great need for other jobs, and that's why we are seeking to retrain and to reskill those people that are on payments now, so that they can take up the jobs of the future.

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