Shadow Treasurer Curtis Pitt says the latest quarterly CommSec State of the States report confirms the Newman Government is failing to meet its election promise to create jobs.
“The CommSec report says the March 2013 trend jobless rate in Queensland of 5.8% is 14.2% above the decade-average of 5.1%,” Mr Pitt said.
“The CommSec report says the Queensland jobless rate ‘remains historically high’.
“In other words, the LNP is not matching the efforts of former Labor governments over the past decade.
“The CommSec report shows Queensland has slipped to become the worst-performing mainland state on jobs under the LNP.
“The Newman Government is failing to have our state’s jobless rate tracking towards 4% as the Premier and Treasurer promised at the 2012 election.
“To achieve that result they need to generate 420,000 jobs over a six-year period, or about 200 a day.
“But the latest ABS figures show 28,000 full-time jobs have been lost in Queensland under the Newman Government.
“Instead of heading to 4% the LNP is taking us backwards to jobless rates not seen since the Global Financial Crisis.
“I am sure the state economy will pick up despite the ineptitude of the LNP leadership team as the spin-offs from major resource projects initiated by former Labor Governments start to flow.
“It is unfortunate that in the interim so many Queenslanders and so many regional communities must the price through a lack of jobs and economic activity.”
Mr Pitt said he would be very interested to see if Treasurer Tim Nicholls was consistent in his assessment of the CommSec State of the States report’s findings.
“When Mr Nicholls was in Opposition he used the State of the States report to constantly talk down the Queensland economy,” he said.
“In January last year he was saying Queensland was an ‘economic basket case’ yet the CommSec report at the time ranked Queensland as the second-fastest growing economy in Australia.
“Queensland held this position until April 2012 shortly after the LNP were elected and started smothering economic growth.
“What else can be expected when we have an LNP government whose sole claim to fame in its first year has been to cut 14,000 jobs and frontline services.
‘Fewer jobs means fewer people spending and paying taxes, plus less economic activity as the ripples spread throughout local and regional economies,” Mr Pitt said.
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