Kevin Rudd on The 7:30 Report [1] last night
ALI MOORE: After today’s numbers though, and looking at the trends for the last couple of months, where do you think unemployment is going to peak now?
KEVIN RUDD: Well of course the Government, advised by the Treasury, will put out our estimates come the time for the mid-year financial and economic outlook.
ALI MOORE: But do you think 8.5 is still realistic?
KEVIN RUDD: Ali, I have been around long enough to know that you don’t pluck a number from space. We have had some encouragement in terms of these most recent numbers. Remember the unemployment rate in the United States at present is tipping 10 per cent.
And also bear in mind Treasury’s advice that had we not engaged in our stimulus strategy, our nation building for recovery plan that we too would have been headed in the direction of 10 per cent and right now we’d be in the depths of recession, but we still have a long way to go.
What? We haven’t reached US unemployment levels, and so we should be happy? Come off it Kevin. The US have a president who said unemployment would be kept below current levels, but has since been killing jobs with his policies. We would have to have a major collapse to reach US levels.
The reality is that, whilst the official unemployment numbers have not moved, the number of people in full time work has decreased significantly, and of course none of this takes in to account the people who can’t be bothered dealing with the Centrelink bureaucracy and therefore don’t register on the unemployment figures…me being one of them. The amount of time I have spent out of work this year far outweighs the amount of time I have spent in work, but from previous experience, I have no intention of dealing with the Centrelink paperwork nightmare surrounding my intermittent employment, or deal with their need to shoehorn me in to any old job they can push me in to.
Kevin, there is plenty of work to do. It is not the time, right now, to pat yourself on the back because you haven’t caused the carnage that your mate Barry Bamster has.
Samuel