MINISTER’S VALENTINES DAY MEMO FOR SINGLES: MOVE TO THE REGIONS

Lacking an actual jobs plan, the Morrison Government has decided the answer to fixing unemployment and underemployment is to send Aussie singles to the bush.

In what sounds more like the summary of a new reality TV program, Minister for Finance Simon Birmingham in a speech today singled out “hundreds of thousands of Australians currently on Jobseeker who are single have no children and largely no impediments to work,” as candidates who should consider moving to the country to find work.

This bizarre plea says everything about the policy vacuum that hovers over this tired and uninspired 8-year-old government.

Right now, there are eight Australians on unemployment support for every job vacancy.

 

There are simply not enough jobs for every Australian who needs one.

 

Labor understands that moving to the country for some Jobseekers may be appropriate. But it is no substitute for a real plan for jobs. 

 

The Australian people deserve a government that is offering practical, sensible and smart solutions to how we create jobs and boost wages in this country.

 

We need a government that is on the side of everyday Australians trying to recover from this pandemic.

 

Instead the only thing Mr Birmingham can offer people looking for a job is to hit the road.  

 

This isn’t a plan for jobs. It’s a half-baked white board idea someone forgot to erase.  

 

The fact of the matter is there are simply not enough jobs for every Australian who needs one.

 

We need a plan for jobs from the Morrison Government, not attacks on the Australian people.