Mr BROUGH (Minister for Employment Services) (4:26 PM) —Let us have a quick look at what this matter of public importance is that the member for Dickson has put up today:

Let us have a bit of a look at what the Labor Party did in government and what the adverse impacts were to social, family and economic policy.

Mr Sidebottom —Can't you deal with the present? You live in the past.

Mr BROUGH —The opposition do not like you to remind the public of their record. Quite obviously, historians always look to the past to get a picture of what is going to happen in the future. In the past we saw under the Labor Party extraordinary levels of government debt, unemployment and household interest rates. Consider this: today the average person in my electorate, in Caboolture and the Glasshouse Mountains and Maleny area, is paying 6.8 per cent interest rates—as they are in the seat of Aston. What could they hope for under the Labor Party? Go back to the late eighties and nineties, when rates peaked at 17 per cent: consider for a moment what that meant in terms of the social impact and the family impact of the economic policy of those opposite. It meant that the income of the family was less. It meant they could spend less on the education of those that they loved. It meant that they could spend less on their health and wellbeing, let alone having anything for entertainment. But do those opposite give a damn about such matters? No, they do not. Otherwise, they would not be beholden to economic policies which drove unemployment up, put family breadwinners out of work and, in doing so, ensured that the breadwinner felt demoralised. What did they do? The Labor Party had a plan for these people. It was called `New Work Opportunities'. I keep asking the member for Dickson, the shadow spokesman on employment and employment services: are you going to reintroduce New Work Opportunities?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl) —Please don't ask the member for Dickson. She is interrupting too much. Don't provoke her.

Mr BROUGH —At $180,000 per person that got a job, the Labor Party in government thought that was a good policy. I have not yet heard them repudiate that statement. I have not heard them say, `We will embrace the Job Network, Intensive Assistance, Work for the Dole.' We hear everything but that. We hear the shadow minister say that she remembers being a schoolteacher and, when she was a schoolteacher, if you got on your report card that you were pretty average or that you were not very good, you really knew what that meant. This is what she refers to the Job Network members as: people who have a 14 per cent better outcome of placing people in work, at half the cost of the Labor Party programs—

Ms Kernot —Dodgy figures, and you know it.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Member for Dickson, you can dodge outside, if you don't keep quiet.

Mr BROUGH —I would like to present a graph for the benefit of the shadow minister. This graph shows the expenditure of Employment Services from 1991 to 2000. See the big finger on it? That is the big finger that the Labor Party gave to the Australian public. The graph shows expenditure from when they thought it was fine to spend $16,000 per outcome, and at that time unemployment actually went up. Outcomes went down, and unemployment actually went up, and your expenditure went up. You wasted taxpayers' money. Look over here at the Job Network, the much maligned Job Network.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order! the Minister will resume his seat.

Mr O'Connor —Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As I understand the practice, the minister is not permitted to show graphs. We are being most indulgent here with those graphs.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —I thank the honourable member for Corio. The fact is that the minister is using a graph to illustrate the points of his talk. I say to my friends on my left that, after the member for the Northern Territory today introduced several containers of pseudo liquid to illustrate a point, I am not going to stop the minister.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —And I would like to tell the member for Melbourne Ports that he is not in his place.

Mr BROUGH —Mr Deputy Speaker, thank you. I am wondering whether the shadow minister does not want to see the extraordinary expenditure, where unemployment and expenditure went up, or or is it down here, on the Job Network, where outcomes improved, employment went down and expenditure was at reasonable levels. Which part don't you accept? Or is this the graph that the Labor Party does not want to see? This graph here is Job Network's job matching. As you can see, the graph continues to improve—lower costs, improved outcomes. And look here at intensive assistance. For those who do not understand, like the shadow minister, intensive assistance is for those unemployed people who actually are difficult to place. Look at the tram line on this particular graph: it continued to improve at lower cost.

So what was the cost per employment outcome under Labor? In 1991 it was $8,000. With the pork-barrelling of the then Labor government in 1996, as the graph clearly demonstrates, this peaked at $16,000 per net outcome—a fantastic effort! Today the Job Network, which has been performing so well, is doing the same job at about $4,500 to $5,000 per net outcome. In other words, the taxpayers are spending one-third to get the same result or they are getting three jobs for the same expenditure as under Labor.

So what did the Labor Party do when they were in government? They had great programs for putting people into training. If there was a direct correlation between worthwhile training and job outcomes, then you would expect the outcomes to improve and you would expect unemployment to come down. Their expenditure went through the roof—money they did not have; money that was put on the bankcard; remember that? This is money that we are still paying back. Today taxpayers are paying $4 billion in interest on money that the Labor Party spent in government. That is $4 billion that could actually improve the social aspects of our lives. It could improve the social consequences for families. We could put that into the private hospital system or the public hospital system or into state schools, or we could just give it to the states in grants. For example, Queensland got an extra $46 million the other day, and they could put that into, dare I say it, the police, or into something that is actually going to help the fabric of society. But not under the Labor Party; they are not interested in that.

They are more interested in spending an extraordinary sum of money to put people through training courses. So they had people cycling through `mickey mouse training courses'. That is a term that the Leader of the Opposition likes to use when referring to Work for the Dole, which is giving people about a 78 per cent better chance of getting into employment, which is ensuring that about 35 per cent get work or go into education, which has 90 per cent support and which is not costing not $180,000 per outcome. I have not mistaken that figure, by the way; I have not got it wrong. It actually cost you and me—and those ignorant people over there with their backs turned who do not want the facts—$180,000 to get someone a job that would not have otherwise got it. I bet there is not a person in this House, not even a child in the gallery or another person up there, that could not get someone a job for $180,000. In fact, come on down if you cannot, because I am sure you can. But the Labor Party thought that was a wonderful program. What does Work for the Dole cost? Something in the order of $2,500—less than that, in fact. The Labor Party probably want to join their supporters in the Labor Party in New Zealand, which got rid of their program which was similar.

This whole MPI is about the consequences of the government's social and economic policy on employment. How can those opposite be so hypocritical, when they had more than one million unemployed—that is a million families who did not have a breadwinner, who did not have someone that could be in charge of their family household and had to look for welfare. This government does not run away from the facts. It strongly supports the view that work is the best form of welfare. How can you afford it, though, when you have 17 per cent interest rates, when you have high taxes and when you have increasing unemployment? That is the Labor Party's legacy; that is what they left Australia. And they want to have the treasury bench again.

What we do know is that the Labor Party has no plan. When it comes to employment services, the member for Dickson sits over there and says, `They have stolen my plan. I agree with the member for Longman.' If you agree with us, why haven't you bothered to put anything on `my plan for Australia, Kim Beazley'? Why wasn't it important enough for you to actually sit down at the word processor and put down `Here is my plan—the member for Dickson's plan—for the unemployed of this country?'

Ms Kernot —You will see.

Mr BROUGH —Oh, we will see. We are going to have an election in the next four to five months, and we do not have one thing on your web site. As I said at question time today—and I challenge the member for Dickson—will the member for Dickson take the opportunity to actually tell the people of Kingaroy, the people of Wondai, the people of the Blue Mountains, the people of Rockhampton or the people of Mackay which of the Job Networks you are going to close down. By saying, `We don't want them,' which small businesses and small towns are you going to tear the heart out of? In Caboolture we have about six or seven Job Network members, and I can just imagine what the uptown traders would say if you, Cheryl Kernot, bothered to take a trip—an extra 10 minutes up the highway—and said to them, `You are out of here, you are gone.' This is a part of town that is struggling. This is a part of town that actually thrives on the fact that we have employment services being paid for by the federal government and being delivered by committed members of the public, both community and private sector. But, no, that is not good enough for those opposite. That is not what they are interested in. All they are interested in is scaremongering and misrepresenting us, and they talk to Job Network members as though they are children at school. They do not actually understand the ramifications of what they have done.

Since this government came to power in 1996, there have been over 800,000 new jobs created. How does that compare with Labor's last attempt: in the last five years of Labor 27,000 jobs, compared to 800,000 jobs. Unemployment has come down, the cost of delivering employment services has come down, outcomes have gone up and interest rates have come down. Let us get on to tax, because under Labor the average family was paying 34 cents in the dollar in tax. For every dollar they earnt, they gave 34 cents, and that was climbing to 43 cents in the dollar. I come from one of the lower socioeconomic areas of this country. The neighbouring electorate of Dickson, contrary to what the member for Dickson had to say the other day, is in fact the second wealthiest seat in the Queensland electorate.

Mr Hardgrave —That's because it includes the Broncos.

Mr BROUGH —I was wondering, as the member for Moreton said: is that because she includes in her electorate, where she tends to reside—

Ms Kernot —I wouldn't go there if I were you, Mal Brough.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order!

Mr BROUGH —having had a residence, of course, down on the Gold Coast—

Ms Kernot —I wouldn't go there if I were you.

Mr BROUGH —Try your luck.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —The member for Dickson!

Mr BROUGH —Mr Deputy Speaker—

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order!

Mr BROUGH —Right, are we?

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Yes.

Mr BROUGH —Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Well, I am; I do not know about you. But carry on.

Mr BROUGH —Thank you very much. I was just a bit concerned about the blood pressure of those opposite. The opposition promised the Australian people tax cuts, which would have actually added to the social fabric because people would have had a bit more money in their hand. Did anyone listen to the World Today yesterday?

Government members—No.

Mr BROUGH —They said, `Gee, isn't it great that the economy has bounced back: we're getting 1.1 per cent growth in the economy,' and they said, `That must be because Australian families are spending their tax cuts'—tax cuts delivered by this government. That is in contrast to what the Labor Party said. Keating got up here with Beazley as his finance minister and said, `We're going to deliver you tax cuts after the election.' Every pensioner in this country will receive, from a budget that was brought down only a few weeks ago, $300 in the next two to three weeks. They will get it in the month of June 2001, not promised to happen after the next election in never-never land. The people of Australia are still waiting on the tax cuts that were going to be delivered by the Leader of the Opposition and the then Prime Minister, who of course now prefers to go out and tender his work elsewhere. So l-a-w tax cuts: they are the Clayton's tax cuts, the Labor Party's tax cuts. They are the tax cuts that people cannot spend.

Today the average Australian family is paying just 30 cents in the dollar tax, and this side of the House would like to see that driven down lower. What we know from those opposite is that they have given no commitment to not increasing fuel excise, which hits every family and every small business. They have given no commitment to not taking small businesses out of country towns. They have given no commitment whatsoever to assisting the unemployed of this country and the small businesses of this country. They cut real wages; this government has increased them. We have cut tax; they would increase taxes. We have lowered debt; they have increased debt. Those are the things that make the social fabric of this country; they are the things that determine whether or not we have a social and a just society. This government has delivered and will continue to deliver, and woe betide Australia if they ever get their hands on the Treasury benches, because the Australian public will be the loser.

Mr Danby —Tell us how small business loves the BAS.

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mr Nehl)—With the support and permission of the honourable member for Melbourne Ports, who might get back in his place if he is going to continue interjecting and then I can deal with him, I am very pleased to call the honourable member for Blaxland.

Mr Brough —This is an l-a-w government staffer—gotcha!

Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER —Order!