Premier Goes Backwards On Jobs

Media Release.

 

Opposition Leader Annastacia Palaszczuk says the latest jobless figures shows the Newman Government is going backwards when it comes to keeping its promise to deliver 4% unemployment.
“The 4% jobless commitment the Premier made to Queenslanders at last year’s election means he must create jobs at the rate of 200 a day, or 420,000 new jobs over six years,” Ms Palaszczuk said during a visit to centres in South West Queensland.
“Today’s ABS figures for December 2012 show 153,600 Queenslanders out of work, with 16,800 of them joining the unemployment queue since the last election in March 2012,” Ms Palaszczuk said.
“The latest figures mean the Premier is now behind his job-creation target and if he is to reach the 4% mark his new target needs to be the creation of 230 jobs a day.”
Today’s unemployment figures released by the ABS showed:

• Queensland’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate was 6.2% in December, up from 6.1% in November.
  
• Between November and December 2012 almost 22,900 jobs were lost in Queensland with nearly half being full-time jobs.
  
• Queensland had the highest jobless rate in mainland Australia.
  
• The national jobless rate was 5.4% compared with 5.3% in November.

“All the Premier is doing to address the state’s GFC-style jobless rate is to indulge in a cargo-cult approach such as his announcement in Mount Isa that he is banking on uranium mining to stimulate the North West Queensland economy,” she said.
“At the same time his own government has delivered nothing to the North West under its bogus ‘Royalties for the Regions’ scheme despite the region being one of the most productive mining regions in the world.
“In fact, North West Queensland delivers well over $200 million a year or close to 10% of state mining royalties yet receives nothing in return from the LNP.”
Ms Palaszczuk said the Newman Government’s mass sackings and constant negativity about the state economy and finances had contributed to its poor performance on job creation.
“It seems the Newman Government has simply given up on its jobs pledge,” she said.
“In December in his Budget Mid-Year Review the Treasurer Tim Nicholls said the average jobless rate for 2012-13 was now expected to be 6.25% — not the 6% he forecast in his State Budget last September,” she said.
“Mr Nicholls is also expecting unemployment to stay high in 2013-14 — averaging 6% and not the 5.75% he previously forecast.”
Ms Palaszczuk said the need to create jobs was one of the major concerns of locals she had met and spoken with on her current visit to South West Queensland centres.
“The feeling of many locals is that they are being ignored by the LNP government with the Premier’s focus on Brisbane,” she said.
“It doesn’t help to have a government intent on sacking its own employees in rural and regional centres, especially at local hospitals or in other agencies and departments.
“When government jobs go the affected families often leave town and take their children out of local schools.
“That means a downward spiral for the local economy as fewer pay packets are spent locally, the local school population declines so teachers are withdrawn from the local community.
“The LNP’s mass sackings have terrible ripple effects and hit hard at local business operators and the fabric of local communities.
“It is no wonder people feel like that when they see no employment initiatives in their area, yet no expense is spared when it comes to building a new and unnecessary Executive Building in the Brisbane CBD for the Premier and his Ministers,” Ms Palaszczuk said.