Mr CHEESEMAN (2:03 PM) —Mr Speaker, my question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for Education and Minister for Social Inclusion. How does Australia’s current economic strength compare with that elsewhere in the world? How are Australians benefiting from this performance and are there any barriers to this continuing?

Ms GILLARD (Minister for Education, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion) —I thank the member for Corangamite for his question—the first sensible one we have heard today. I know that the member for Corangamite, like all members on this side of the House, is desperately concerned that working Australians have the benefit of a strong economy and the benefit of work. We understand that, when working Australians lose their jobs, it can be a personal tragedy for them and for their families. During the global financial crisis and global recession that threatened this country, the government did what we needed to do to keep the economy going. This month we saw our unemployment rate decrease to 5.2 per cent and our GDP grow by 0.5 per cent in the March quarter. What these figures make clear—and they are particularly clear from the national accounts figures—is that our economic growth is being underpinned by stimulus spending. For example, take the Building the Education Revolution program alone, which is responsible for around a third of the economic activity in the non-residential building sector to April 2010. We should reflect one moment and compare this with the kind of unemployment rates being experienced overseas—the United States at 9.7 per cent, the eurozone at more than 10 per cent and the UK at almost eight per cent, representing a tragedy for literally millions of working people.

As Australians, we know that in times past, when there have been economic difficulties, it has taken a long time for us to climb out of those economic difficulties, particularly a long time for us to see unemployment rates start to fall. In the 1990s unemployment climbed to 10.9 per cent and long-term unemployment peaked at more than 32 per cent. It took around eight years to fall back to pre-recession levels of six per cent. In the recession of the early eighties, the unemployment rate climbed to more than 10 per cent. It took five years to fall down to the pre-recessionary levels of six per cent. In these circumstances, we should be saying to ourselves and to each other that it is great for working families that we are already seeing unemployment fall following the economic downturn brought to this country by the global financial crisis and global recession.

Opposition members interjecting—

Ms GILLARD —Of course, I do not expect the opposition to indicate any interest in the jobs of working Australians, because if we had followed their strategy an extra 200,000 working Australians would have been out of work and we would have seen this nation in a deep recession. In addition to the tragedy of unemployment, there is also the loss of skills and the loss of the ability to give young Australians a start. If we look at earlier economic downturns—let’s look at the early 1980s—we saw a 28.7 per cent drop in the 1980s in apprenticeship commencements and it took five years to recover to pre-recession levels. In the 1990s there was a 35 per cent drop and it took 13 years to get to pre-recession levels.

In this economic downturn, on the early data we can say we are already moving to returning to pre-recession levels. We do not want to see a generation of young Australians stranded. If we had taken the advice of the opposition, we would have seen that generation stranded. We would have seen more than 200,000 extra Australians out of work. In terms of analysing this advice from the opposition much has been made of their economic folly and their inability to analyse and respond to what needed to be done in the face of the global financial crisis and global recession. I think there is more at work here than simply that kind of economic folly. There is malice at work because they showed in government their complete indifference to working Australians, their job security and their needs by introducing Work Choices. In opposition, through denying economic stimulus, they continue to show that complete indifference to the needs of working families to have a job.