Mr BROADBENT (2:18 PM) —My question is to the Treasurer. Would the Treasurer outline to the House the results of the February labour force survey? What do these figures reveal about not only the strength of the Australian economy but also employment growth?

Mr COSTELLO (Treasurer) —I thank the honourable member for McMillan for his question and acknowledge the work that he does in that capacity. I can inform the House that in the month of February there were 20,000 new jobs created in the Australian economy. What is more, there was a decline in part-time jobs so that the number of new full-time jobs created in the month of February was 37,900. That means that here in Australia in the last year, the number of new jobs created was around 325,000. For the 19th month in a row unemployment continues below six per cent and it continues at a record 30-year low of 5.1 per cent on a very high participation rate.

There has been some commentary recently in the press about shortages of labour. There has been a lot of focus on skills shortages but, as I have pointed out on numbers of occasions, Australia also has unskilled shortages. Let me make the point: one of the reasons—perhaps the major reason—why we are now seeing labour shortages in the Australian economy is that unemployment is low. You never saw labour shortage problems in 1990, when unemployment was double the rate that it is now. As far as economic problems go, the problem of too many jobs chasing too few people is a good problem to have. It is certainly a much better problem to have than too many people chasing too few jobs. Nobody ever talked about skills shortages or unskilled shortages when the now Leader of the Opposition was the minister for employment. I must congratulate him on that. The now Leader of the Opposition abolished labour shortages for a very long period of time. He abolished them by putting one million out of work. There were no shortages back then with unemployment at 10.9 per cent.

Having said all of that, we should not be afraid of low unemployment in Australia. The object of economic policy is to get unemployment low—to give people the opportunity to find work. We can continue to run economic growth on low unemployment as long as we keep wages in line with productivity. The only way in which this could be disturbed by high employment and low unemployment is if people took the opportunity to try to base wage outcomes out of whack with productivity. If that were to happen then you would get inflationary pressures in the economy. But there is no reason for that. Real wages are growing in Australia. Unemployment is low. There are more people in work than ever before. The prospects for the Australian economy are for continuing jobs growth. Our goal ought to be this: a job opportunity for everyone who wants to work, with the opportunity of a decent wage in a growing economy. That is the object of economic policy.