Read all the latest news from Brendan O'Connor MP
Read all the latest news from Brendan O'Connor MP
BRENDAN O’CONNOR, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT: Thanks very much. It’s great to be in Cairns in Far North Queensland, but the figures out today are quite damning. The ABS figures have revised the unemployment rate so we’ve seen an increase in the unemployment rate from 5.2 per cent to 5.3 per cent, given the figures that were announced last month. And we’ve seen quite a significant increase in the underemployment rate. So you see a higher unemployment rate, a higher underemployment rate and a very high underutilisation rate. That is a major problem. What that means is that almost 2 million Australians can’t find any work or can’t find enough work to make ends meet. And meanwhile we have a Prime Minister Scott Morrison and a Government who have no plans, no job plans.
Of course yesterday we saw the wages growth data come out too and wage growth is at its lowest on record for at least a decade. So we have a Prime Minister presiding over the lowest wage growth on record, we have underutilisation at 13.8 per cent. We’ve seen unemployment rise, underemployment rise and yet the government is sitting on its hands and doing nothing about that. There’s been a loss of 19,000 jobs in last month’s figures as a result of the data being provided today. That speaks to an economy that is anaemic. That’s why we saw for example the retail volume growth is down, record lows, low retail growth, low consumer confidence, low business confidence, higher unemployment, higher underemployment, higher underutilisation, and as I say a lower participation rate and indeed lower wage growth. These are major problems for our economy.
We have a government who are really not attending to this. No economic plan. No regional plans, so in places like Far North Queensland where the unemployment rate is higher than the national average - in fact in Queensland we have the highest unemployment rate of any State in the country and yet we don’t see the Prime Minister attend to these matters and really continue to do victory laps as a result of the election in May this year and not really have any concrete plan. I’m happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: The unemployment rate in Cairns has dropped significantly over the years though. I suppose what’s the influence on that?
O’CONNOR: Well actually I wouldn’t agree with that. The unemployment rate has been rising in the two States that relied upon the mining boom. In fact what we’ve seen in Queensland since this government was elected in 2013 is an increase in the unemployment rate.
Let’s remember this, when Labor was last in government we saw an unemployment rate that was lower than that of Britain, lower than that of New Zealand, lower than that of United States. Right now, our unemployment rate is higher than those three countries - countries we quite often compare ourselves against. Queensland has the highest unemployment rate in the country at 6.5 per cent.
So we’ve seen a steady increase in the unemployment rate in this State. And when you get out to the regions whether it’s the seat of Leichhardt or other parts of this great State you see the high unemployment numbers. And the other startling figure we have which is the increase in youth unemployment from 11.8 per cent to 12.4 per cent. Now that sample may have some margins of error. We hope we see that fall next month. But that is a startling hike in the youth unemployment rate of this nation in one month from 11.8 per cent to 12.4 per cent.
JOURNALIST: Can you expect youth unemployment to drop or rise, I mean schools finishing, there’s going to be plenty of school leavers out looking for work. Would it be acceptable to understand that it might rise?
O’CONNOR: Well these are seasonally adjusted figures so that may take that into account. But really we need a plan, a macro economic plan. We need to see, for example, the government bring forward school initiatives so that we can stimulate the economy. We have the lowest retail volume growth we’ve seen for many a year. Economic growth is low. The IMF recently forecast our growth and downgraded our economic growth remarkably. We now have an economic growth forecast according to the International Monetary Fund lower than that of Greece, than that of the United States and other countries much lower than that of the European zone. So we are not travelling well.
If you look at all of the data, the unemployment rate rising, falling participation rate of people seeking work, wages are falling. And that’s of course causing problems in the economy at large. That’s why businesses are not employing people because people are not buying goods and services. It’s as simple as that. Remember this, household consumption makes more up more than 60 per cent of our economy. When people are not spending, when they’re too scared to borrow, or they’re paying off debt rather than spending in the shops you see this problem. With underemployment and unemployment that’s what’s happening now.
JOURNALIST: So what sort of fiscal initiatives do you think will fix that problem?
O’CONNOR: We’ve made clear to the government that they would be best to make some decisions to bring forward some of the initiatives, some of the infrastructure spend they’ve outlined. Now most of the things that the Prime Minister talks about when it comes to infrastructure are not even going to be spent before the election in two and a half years’ time.
Well clearly we need to see a government that knows the economy is anaemic understands there are structural problems with the economy and knows that when you look at wage growth when you look at economic growth, they are down. The best thing for the government to do is to bring forward some of those. It should be for the government to determine those, which ones it brings forward. But it really has to do something to help kickstart the economy because at the moment we are travelling along the bottom and you are seeing as a result unemployment start to rise, underemployment rise and economic growth down. These are indicators that should set alarm bells ringing in government. But we don’t see the government at all interested or at all outlining a plan to deal with these problems.
JOURNALIST: You mentioned Queensland has the worst unemployment rate. Do you not think that that blame should be shared with both the federal and state government?
O’CONNOR: Well of course people have responsibilities if they are within a State, but the Federal Government is by far the much more significant government when it comes to expenditure and revenue and the like. I mean the federal budget is vast compared to the state governments. And so of course people have to be criticised if things aren’t going as well as they could. But my job as a Federal Labor spokesperson for Employment is to firstly raise concerns if we don’t believe the Federal Government is doing enough, and clearly they’re not doing enough.
There’s no plan, there’s not one policy that we see that’s looking to attend to the lowest wage growth on record now. This is not a Queensland phenomena. This underemployment I’m talking about is across the country. And so is the underutilisation rate and so is slow wage growth. It’s not like the rest of the country is doing very well and Queensland is not doing very well. That’s not happening. We are seeing problems across the nation, so it’s a national responsibility predominantly. And the Federal Government needs to get off its backside and start doing something.
JOURNALIST: But how does Cairns fare in comparison to the rest the nation? Is it fair to put them in the same basket?
O’CONNOR: Well I’m in Cairns so I’m mentioning Cairns. Like every community Cairns has got the same issues because it’s an economy that effects the regions as well as the suburbs and the cities. So of course we could do more here. But what you really need is a combination of initiatives. Fiscal spending, infrastructure spending in areas which will increase employment opportunities, but also ones that will improve our economic growth because they will be productivity enhancing infrastructure. Those things are important.
There should also be regional efforts as well. That is regional plans, whether it be in Far North Queensland or whether it be in Tasmania or other parts of the nation. We need to see also policies dedicated to parts of the nation, not just the country at large. So it’s for the government to determine those things but at the moment we just see no action at all.
JOURNALIST: So what sort of suggestions would you give to Cairns specifically?
O’CONNOR: Well Cairns specifically I’d really need to talk more closely to community. And that’s why I’m here today and tomorrow to talk to businesses and talk to employment providers and other stakeholders about what they need. We need to listen. We’re not in government. Our job is to firstly hold the government to account when things are not going as well as they should and that’s what we’re doing. But we are also here as a Federal Opposition to listen. We have to accept the loss of the election, that’s a bitter pill to swallow, but we have to accept that. And one of our jobs, one of my jobs, is to listen to all parts of this nation and I’ll be doing that over the course of today and tomorrow.
And look we’ll have some initiatives. But for us our job is to develop policy over the parliamentary term. That’s one of our jobs. Another job is to hold the government to account when it’s not doing anything. Now the government has at its disposal departments and agencies and of course access to the budget. It can make decisions to bring forward infrastructure spending which will mitigate the adverse effect of unemployment falling.
The economy is faltering. These are things that are happening. It’s not just us that are saying that, the Reserve Bank says that, the International Monetary Fund is saying that. The data shows that we’ve got a problem and again today we’ve seen a fall of 19,000 jobs lost in one month. We’ve seen the unemployment rate rise, underutilisation rise, and the only things that are falling it seems or slowing is wage growth and that’s a major problem for our economy.
JOURNALIST: What do you make of Michaelia Cash’s argument that these figures aren’t unexpected because it’s normal for them to move around month-to-month?
O’CONNOR: Well that sort of sounds like a non-answer from a Minister who really doesn’t have a clue as to what we should be doing to attend to the problems in our economy. The fact that she is saying she expected to see unemployment rise and underutilisation rise is quite frankly concerning. If the Government is actually anticipating and expecting things to get worse well firstly they have an obligation to tell that to the Australian people and secondly they have to outline the plan they are going to put in place to respond to that.