Broken vows pile up as Coalition's pledge of 1 million new jobs refuted

Date
    January 2, 2014


The Abbott government faces further pressure over broken promises with a new analysis showing it will fall well short of its pledge to create 1 million jobs over five years.      

Despite Tony Abbott's repeated vows as opposition leader to ''under-promise and over-deliver'' in government, new parliamentary research based on the government's own economic forecasts indicates the Coalition will fall at least 200,000 jobs short.

The analysis, carried out by the Parliamentary Library at the request of Labor, was backed by a range of economists.      

In the run-up to the election, Mr Abbott repeatedly vowed to create 1 million new jobs over five years, and 2 million over a decade, by scrapping the carbon and mining taxes, cutting red tape for business, and boosting productivity, among other measures.


By combining employment data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics with Treasury's jobs growth forecast in last month's mini-budget, the library calculated the Australian economy would add about 620,000 jobs over the next four years. Even allowing for a fifth year, the figures show the government will fall well short of 1 million new jobs.      

The mini-budget, or midyear economic and fiscal outlook (MYEFO), was the government's first major economic statement.

The analysis follows broken Coalition promises on school funding and the roll-out of the National Broadband Network, as well as hints at changes to paid parental leave, the National Disability Insurance Scheme and Medicare. It also comes as the government battles the political fallout of job losses with the planned pull-out by Holden and lay-offs by SPC Ardmona.

Acting Treasurer Mathias Cormann stood by the government's jobs pledge, blaming Labor for the modest jobs growth forecast in the MYEFO.

''It is no secret that we inherited an economy growing below trend, rising unemployment, and a budget in very bad shape,'' he said. ''MYEFO is a reflection of that.''

But shadow treasurer Chris Bowen said the shortfall looked set to become Mr Abbott's ''biggest broken promise''.      

''We cannot continue to see the poor performance on jobs continue with mass lay-offs, particularly in manufacturing, as the government abandons any meaningful role in fostering innovation and the high-skills and high-wage jobs that come with that,'' he said.

Professor Bill Mitchell, head of the University of Newcastle's Centre of Full Employment and Equity, said the jobs promise was ''incredibly far-fetched''. He said the shortfall would be greater even than the Parliamentary Library's figures suggested because Treasury's employment forecasts were overly optimistic.

Employment growth over the past two years had been ''virtually flat'', he said. Deep cuts flagged by the government in its coming May budget would worsen the problem.      

Bank of America Merrill Lynch chief economist Saul Eslake said the government would need real GDP growth to be 4 per cent to 4.5 per cent. ''Nobody is forecasting that,'' he said. And Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital, said the pledge was ''a bit of a stretch'', given Treasury's jobs growth forecast was fairly flat.

John Daley, chief executive officer of the Grattan Institute, said employment growth would depend largely on factors beyond the government's control, such as the global economy.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/broken-vows-pile-up-as-coalitions-pledge-of-1-million-new-jobs-refuted-20140101-3066n.html#ixzz2pBBqMXII

I predict a huge growth to unemployment in 2014.

It's one negative aspect of a pre depression period.

What happened to all these new jobs, that Mr Abbott said he would create?.      

progressiveslol wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2014 at 7:29am:



Absolute rubbish.

What jobs?.....the mining boom went BUST!

Real estate? flipping houses?

Call centre slaves selling phone plans?

Mowing each others lawn?

The "new jobs" promise is bogus. If the unemployment rates and economic conditions remained constant, about 1,800,000 jobs would be created in ten years simply due to the effects of population growth and immigration. All they are really promising is to create 200,000 new jobs in a decade, 20,000 jobs in a year. It won't do anything meaningful to reduce unemployment.

The Abbott government has NOT promised to reduce unemployment. Anyone that says otherwise is lying. Let's suppose the Abbott government was in power for a decade and somehow all these jobs were created. Unemployment would STILL be well over 5%. Their promise would reduce the unemployment rate by 0.2%, say from from about 6.0% to 5.8%. That small signal would be lost in the noise.

As for what is actually happening, it seems that every week since the Abbott government was elected we have heard about jobs being lost and all that they are doing is standing there waving goodbye. They promised hope, they are delivering despair.

aquascoot wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2014 at 7:54am:

Again you do not know what you're talking about.

Firstly, you are not a beacon for logical thinking and I suggest you refrain from it in future. Your criminal stupidity where you asserted that people were killing themselves to get onto disability is inexcusable. Here, you're asserting that "let the cream create the jobs". many of these people are the ones making decisions to send jobs offshore just to make more money for themselves. It's an idiotic argument bereft of facts and not worth the time to read.

Competing in the credit market? When interest rates are at their lowest for 50 years? Fail.

While Canberra is taxing? Business taxes are at their lowest for decades. Another fail.

While Canberra is regulating excessively? Business regulation grew quite a lot under the Howard government. Blame them.

Public service jobs? Maybe you should get a "cushy" job being a police officer telling someone that their close relative has been killed in a car accident, or nursing an injury after breaking up fights on a Friday night. Maybe you should drive an ambulance on a 14-hour night shift. These are public service jobs.

Ludicrous job creation schemes? It's not ludicrous to create jobs. You want ludicrous? Abbott's job destruction schemes. Unless you're one of Abbott's mates - Forrest and Rinehart get very fat subsidies from the government that they don't need. They each get more money each year from the government in subsidies than is paid out to 1000 welfare recipients, and with far less paperwork. Or the ludicrous idea that we should make work for welfare recipients with the fake jobs of work for the dole.

And one last thing, aquascoot, your logic is not logic, it's lies. Have you apologised yet for your criminal stupidity where you insinuated that people were killing themselves to get onto disability?

Just another lie to add to one term tonys growing mountain of lies 

adelcrow wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2014 at 4:26pm:



They bitched about 'Labor waste', then doubled it.

They lied about 'Labor debt' then doubled it.

And they derided Swan's claim he'd create 500k jobs, then doubled it.

What a smacking joke these grubs are!!