DAVID KOCH:
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg joins me now from Melbourne. Treasurer, Good morning to you. More than a million Australians were on JobKeeper, ended yesterday. Will these people soon be out of work? How strong is the job market to soak this up?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well the job market has been a lot stronger than even our most optimistic forecasts at the end of last year. We saw the unemployment rate fall to 5.8 per cent and we saw 88,700 jobs created last month. The good news was that all those jobs were full-time jobs and more than 80 per cent of those jobs went to women and more than 40 per cent of those jobs went to young people. But we know it will be challenging with the end of JobKeeper but the advice from Treasury was very clear, that program has to come to an end. It was initially for six months and we extended to 12 months and if we left it in place as the economy strengthened, it would have actually been counter-productive because it would have prevented workers moving more freely across the economy into more productive roles.
DAVID KOCH:
I have found it interesting in the latest figures, the unemployment rate for women was a lot less than the unemployment rate for men. But it is sector by sector, isn't it? Tourism and hospitality still doing it tough, particularly again when we are staring down state border closures in the lead up to Easter.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
It is going to be absolutely key that those state borders stay open, even as states work to control and isolate cases. We know for example, New South Wales has been best in class with their contact testing and tracing. They have had a number of outbreaks but yet they still haven't had a full state lockdown and that has enabled those businesses to keep operating and for workers to continue to be employed. When I spoke to Alan Joyce the other week, he did say to me that in the month of January alone, he cancelled 1500 flights into Queensland because of that state border closure and that meant hundreds of thousands of passenger bookings, which obviously meant hundreds of millions of tourist dollars went missing from places like Hamilton Island or Cairns or Maroochydore or the Gold Coast, so it is really important that the state borders stay open. We have put in place and $1.2 billion aviation tourism package designed to get more planes in the air and therefore more tourists on the ground, and we’ll of course provide additional support when necessary.
DAVID KOCH:
And just quickly while we’ve got you, Coalition MP Andrew Laming, he’ll resign at the next federal election after admitting his behaviour towards women needs to be addressed. Should he leave Parliament now?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, he is going through training and counselling and is planning to return to parliament for the Budget week but now obviously, Andrew has recognised that his behaviour, as we all said, was unacceptable. It was not befitting of an MP, let alone anyone across our society, and therefore the onus is now on him to show that his behaviour has improved and I am confident that he can work through those issues and he has requested the privacy to do that.
DAVID KOCH:
Josh Frydenberg, appreciate your time.