4CA John MacKenzie
E&OE
MACKENZIE:
Scott, good morning.
MINISTER MORRISON:
G’day John.
MACKENZIE:
Can we just have a quick chat about yesterday’s figures. How did you receive them?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well I think it’s good news. There are 150,000 more people in a job today, part-time full-time then there was a year ago and there’s just over 15,000 more in a job in the month of February then there was a month before that, so that’s good news. The unemployment rate fell just slightly by point one of a per cent and there is a lot more work to be done. I think one of the things people may not appreciate is that the unemployment rate can go up but at the same time you can still have more people going into jobs.
MACKENZIE:
Yeah.
MINISTER MORRISON:
That’s just how the statistics works. So I think it’s important to know that there are jobs being created and under our government we are creating them at more than twice the rate it was happening in the last year or so of the previous Government. So we are getting on with the job of creating jobs because what I want to see is more people on payrolls than on welfare.
MACKENZIE:
Now quite clearly you are not into crystal ball gazing but you would have heard what Craig James has had to say. He is expecting more bad news and at least until the end of the year. What are your feelings about where we are going with these figures?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well as I move around the country I am picking up more positive sentiments in business and I think it’s important for the government to keep working on encouraging that positive sentiment. That is the only way you really make a change to the number of people on welfare and it’s important to remember that eight out of ten income taxpayers go to work every day simply to pay the welfare bill of this country, eight out of ten. It’s probably when you get more specific higher than that but that’s a lot of people going to work to pay taxes just to simply pay the $150 billion welfare bill and it’s my job to ensure we get that welfare bill, the growth in that expenditure under control. It’s the fastest growing area of government outlays and if we don’t get it under control it will swallow the budget and put at risk the safety net that all of us take for granted.
MACKENZIE:
Can I take you back to that nearly 4,000 people in Cairns off work at the moment and on Newstart. We also have as you would be aware a youth unemployment figure up around that 20 per cent mark, it’s among the two worst areas youth unemployment-wise in the nation. Talk to me about where we can go specifically in North Queensland about that. I mean quite clearly your Government seems to be very much focused on job creation getting us out of this hole but specifically when you look at a region Scott Morrison from your experience what can we do?
MINISTER MORRISON:
Well first I would say Warren Entsch is in and out of every Minister’s office with responsibility around these things like nobody’s business. He is the champion of trying to solve youth unemployment, certainly in North Queensland. The lessons and the encouragement he is making more broadly of policy in this area I think will benefit many regions around the country because North Queensland has some quite specific challenges in terms of the population and I think there are really innovative approaches there with various community based organisations, not-for-profits. I think with you unemployment in particular you have got to get very tailored, you have got to get very specific.
One of the biggest problems young people often have is even when they get a job, sticking in that job. A lot of the support measures fall away once someone is in a job and then you get young people falling out of a job and getting back on the dole and it is this terrible spiral that goes on. Some of it is just some of the basic skill issues around jobs. It is not often the technical skill requirements, you go to TAFE and you do all that but just how you operate in a job, how you work with other people, how you deal with your boss, all of that sort of thing is really important in helping young people get jobs and stay in jobs. There has got to be jobs for people to go into and working with employers is really important. We have wage subsidy programmes that support young people into these jobs but at the same time employers know they have got to have someone on the shop floor or in the business who is going to actually add value in that business otherwise they are running a welfare programme. So working with businesses particularly in places like North Queensland is really important.
MACKENZIE:
I know you are really short on time and I want to take you back to Monday night and Australian Story on the ABC about Doctor Jamal Rifi and what that represents for many people watching it, a real turning point because that little programme of half an hour had the ability to turn people’s thoughts away from this unfortunate aspect why people are blaming the Islamic community for this terrorism business and actually start getting behind those people who are obviously in considerable numbers within that community who are as horrified as the rest of us about this outbreak of lunacy in our midst.
MINISTER MORRISON:
That is absolutely right John and I applaud the Australian Story for putting that to air. Jamal is a really good mate of mine, we walked Kokoda some years ago and we have remained good friends ever since. Jamal is not alone in that community, there are others Samir Dandan who heads up the Lebanese Muslim Association, he is a very innovative guy who is really working hard in his community. There are a lot of women leaders in that community who are doing work at the moment to help other parents and this is particularly around parts of Sydney where a lot of these issues are, trying to understand what the warning signs are in their kids if they might be getting on the wrong track. There is a lot of constructive work being done in the community by the community because they don’t want to see their kids go over and do this, they don’t want to see their kids basically fall victim to a cult any more than any other Australian would want to see their kids fall victim to any other type of cult. So it is a real social problem, there are some real sinister things behind it but I think what Australian Story did with Jamal is demonstrate that there are great Australians of good faith who are trying really hard and taking massive risks, more so than the rest of us in trying to solve this problem.
MACKENZIE:
It did occur to me too, I don’t know about you but I would love the commercial networks to focus on, well that story for a start but other similar stories that you are informing us about this morning. If we could get that across all those networks and throughout the media generally more of that type of story I think there would be a change of sentiment in this country.
MINISTER MORRISON:
I think you are right, I know Jamal would be happy to come on your programme John and have a chat. I remember one day Jamal and I went into 2GB in Sydney and for over half an hour we chatted to Ray Hadley down there and he talked about what was going on in his community. So I am sure he would be happy to chat to your listeners.
MACKENZIE:
Next time you are up drop into the studio for half an hour and take some calls, Scott.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Would love to.
MACKENZIE:
Good to talk to you today.
MINISTER MORRISON:
Thanks John.