Mr MARTIN FERGUSON —My question is addressed to the Prime Minister. I refer again to Bernie Fraser's endorsement today of a five to six per cent unemployment target—

Mr Costello —By when? Tell us by when.

Government members interjecting—

Mr ACTING SPEAKER —Order! Members on my right!

Mr MARTIN FERGUSON —To the departmental advice given to Senator Vanstone in March that five per cent was achievable by 2001 and to the NILS study conclusion that this government is presently on track for unemployment of eight per cent by the end of the decade. Are you aware that the difference between having eight per cent unemployment and five per cent unemploy ment in 2001 is just on 300,000 jobs? In light of today's disastrous unemployment figures, how long are you going to persist with growth destroying and job destroying policies which will have this result? And what will the result be? A result where more than a quarter of a million Australians who desperately want and need jobs and who could have jobs will not have jobs.

Mr HOWARD —I make a couple of points in reply to the member for Batman. The first is that, interestingly, he did not repeat the distortion by the member for Hotham.

Mr Costello —Deceit and distortion.

Mr Crean —Set a target.

Mr Costello —Why don't you withdraw and apologise.

Mr HOWARD —The member for Hotham quite deliberately, knowingly and dishonestly misrepresented what the Governor of the Reserve Bank said. Can I say—through you, Mr Acting Speaker—to the member for Batman: you can ask as many of these questions as you like, and I would be happy to answer questions from you all day. I would be very happy to stand here all day and answer the questions, but nothing can alter the unassailable fact that for 13 years you people sitting opposite ran the affairs of this country and you drove unemployment to its highest level since the Great Depression.

For 32 consecutive months under Labor it was higher than it was at any time during the term of office of the Fraser government. You left a number of terrible legacies on 2 March; none was worse than the legacy of high unemployment. Until this government's new policies are allowed to be implemented, until we are given a fair opportunity to turn the situation around, you will be held responsible as you should be by the Australian people for having created such a disastrously high level of unemployment.