Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (15:15): This is the worst government in Australian Federation history. Those opposite are addicted to a simple policy: they believe that the mindless, simple repetition of certain words will hypnotise the Australian people into believing that it is actually happening. And nowhere is the lie from this government greater than when it comes to them pretending to be about jobs and growth. Labor will never take a lecture from this mob about the creation of jobs. We will not take a lecture from them, and nor will Australians, about their faux commitment to employment when, since they got elected 700 days ago, unemployment is now at 800,000. Did you see how the so-called leader of Australia could not answer a straight question about how many people are unemployed? Did you see how his mouth went dry, his throat constricted and his eyes darted around the chamber when asked, 'When was the last time there were 800,000 people unemployed in this country?' He knows that it has not been since 1994. This is the worst anti-jobs Prime Minister we have seen in a very long time. Mr Hockey is fond of saying what unemployment was in the Howard years, but I will remind Mr Hockey about jobs when he took over. Unemployment had a 'five' in front of it; it now has a 'six' in front of it. There are now 188,000 people who are long-term unemployed. There are 800,000 people who are unemployed full stop. There are over one million Australians who regularly record that they would like more hours of work. There are 800,000 people on the disability support pension, people who this government constantly malign and put in the too-hard basket. We see youth unemployment much higher than it should be. We see record highs of unemployment in Western Australia. Since Mr Abbott and his Liberals were elected in Australia, unemployment in Western Australia has gone up by nearly 30,000 people. Jobs are a problem in this country and the government has no answer to it. Yet on Saturday in Adelaide this Prime Minister got up and said to the party faithful—which is a dwindling number, I recognise—that the government had had 'two great years in government'—that is his summary. Mr Bowen: I would hate to see two shockers! Mr SHORTEN: It fills me with horror to imagine what this Prime Minister imagines two bad years of an Abbott government looks like! But the real problem, if we want to talk about jobs, is that the masterminds of this so-called jobs and growth mirage that this government keeps talking about have been in chaos all this week—and it is only Wednesday. Look at the dysfunction of this government. This week the Prime Minister got out his well-dusted riot act and read it again to his colleagues and he worked strenuously, tirelessly, through an empty cabinet agenda—it was not quite empty though, was it? There was an important note for the team at the bottom of the empty box, the folder box—presumably it was from the ministry of truth, or whatever they are calling the Prime Minister's personal office these days—that said, 'If asked about cabinet leaks, respond that the cabinet is functioning exceptionally well'. How do we know it is functioning exceptionally well? Because they leaked it to us! Who needs Sky to find out what is going on when we have the cabinet ministers. They are a government that are fond of creating division in this country. Everything that goes wrong for this government, everything they mishandle, they blame on a new confected set of enemies. The unhinged attack on the environment over the last two days has been remarkable. The Prime Minister's latest anti-environment rant saw him say of the EPBC: 'We've got to change the law. The law's bad; the law is a terrible law. I, Tony Abbott, will step up with my shining cross and I will change it and save the people and take them to the promised land on the environment.' The problem is that the law he wants to change was introduced in July 2000. 'Uh oh', you think, 'July 2000? Was that when the socialists were running the government or is that when the communists were running it?' It was actually John Howard running it. Since John Howard introduced the very protection for the environment, the good process, that the Prime Minister is so desperately trying to get rid of, there have been 5,500 projects go through that process. Clearly the Prime Minister is justifying not fixing up the mistake in the ranks of his own ministry. You would conclude that to justify this wholesale onslaught on the so-called law-fare crisis in the environment, to justify this great big new crisis, which demands—probably they will be wearing uniforms next to deal with the crisis. What we have seen is 5,500 successful projects— Mr Christensen interjecting— Mr SHORTEN: Listen: you have been at Reclaim Australia, enough from you. Mr Christensen interjecting— The SPEAKER: The member for Dawson will cease interjecting! Mr SHORTEN: and we have seen 33 Federal Court challenges. Is that the number you just heard me say? Out of 5½ thousand projects under this great epidemic—this conspiracy of the Green-Left-John Howard alliance to ruin Australia—only 33 have gone to the Federal Court, and they have been against a total of 22 projects. That is 33 applications against 22 projects out of 5½ thousand projects—there is a clear crisis here. That is 0.4 per cent for those of you opposite who cannot count. I will take you through the 33, because, after all, the government said: 'Stop everything, we're the champions of jobs. We're going to clean up this terrible scandal.' I do not know why they do not have a royal commission into it. They say four were discontinued or resolved with the consent of the parties. Okay, well there are still 29. They said six were legally successful, in the sense that the application received a judgement; all the others were unsuccessful. So in fact there have been six successful claims on 5½ thousand projects on a change introduced by John Howard in 2000—this is a crisis. You can see how this has made the otherwise very busy people stop their leaking and drop their pencils and everything else. In fact, in 15 years of this massive jobs crisis, which only Tony Abbott can save Australia from, there has been one project cancelled. An opposition member: What? Mr SHORTEN: What did you say? One project. The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition will refer to members by their proper titles. Mr SHORTEN: The current Prime Minister. As grand conspiracies go, this has been about as systematic and effective as the CIA's exploding cigar in Castro's face. This is not about jobs. We know that the Prime Minister simply and utterly does not have a plan for jobs. What you do when you do not have a plan for jobs is start creating false bogeymen and saying, 'We better be careful. We better be scared. Don't get out of bed in the morning because the Greens are under the bed with this terrible section of the act crafted by John Howard.' The government do not have a plan for jobs. They could have fixed this whole issue without spending months going through legislation simply by asking the department to resubmit the document to the minister. The minister could have just checked, because he made an identical mistake some months ago. When we talk about the jobs plan of the government, firstly, we know that the numbers are horrific under this government. Mr Christensen interjecting— Mr SHORTEN: Are you still here, Member for Dawson? Mr Christensen interjecting— The SPEAKER: The member for Dawson will cease interjecting. Mr Christensen interjecting— The SPEAKER: The member for Dawson is warned. Mr SHORTEN: Secondly, we have seen this false conspiracy about the Greens. Then they talk about the failure of jobs and growth. The problem with the government and jobs and growth is that they have had two years to do something about employment. When I listen to this government talk about jobs and growth, I close my eyes and ask, 'Who has been helped by this government?' Is it the auto workers at Holden and Toyota? Opposition members: No! Mr SHORTEN: Is it the refinery workers at Gove? Opposition members: No! Mr SHORTEN: Is it the shipyard workers in Williamstown and Newcastle? Opposition members: No! Mr SHORTEN: Is it the Alcoa workers in Geelong? Opposition members: No! Mr SHORTEN: Is it whole communities such as Queenstown on the west coast of Tassie? Opposition members: No! Mr SHORTEN: Is it the 100 dock workers at the Port Botany terminal who were sacked by text the other day? Opposition members: No! Mr SHORTEN: How does this government care about jobs? What does Senator Abetz, the minister for 'Work Choices lite', he of Dolce and Gabbana fame, have to say? He says, 'Fair enough. Why not sack people by text?' He wishes he had thought of it first. If we want to talk about the lack of commitment to jobs of this government, let's have a look at renewable energy. Last year the world added 1.2 million jobs in the renewable energy sector. You might think, 'Fair enough. We must have got a portion of that.' No. We have gone back 13 per cent in the last year in renewable energy jobs. Only under this incompetent leader and his incompetent, divided administration could Australia go backwards on renewable energy jobs when the rest of the world is going forward. We know there is only one job that matters in Australia to this Prime Minister—his own. The government talk about ChAFTA and attack Labor and tell scurrilous lies about Labor's opposition to it. We do believe in trade liberalisation. We do believe in the benefits and that it brings new markets. We get that. But a free trade agreement does not mean signing a blank cheque. By rushing into a free trade agreement, this government is planning to dud Australian workers. It is clear that when it came to land purchases which might be facilitated by ChAFTA this government held the line. They created a new standard. But when it came to labour and people, they sold them out in a heartbeat. They said, 'Don't worry about the fine print. We'll just trust everything. Let's get rid of the safety net. Let's get rid of labour market testing in these IFAs.' This is a government who we know care only about some jobs and not other jobs. Labor like all the upside of this agreement; we just not will not sign on to all the downside of this agreement. This is a government who have no plan for workers and no plan for quality jobs. They have no plan for skills, no plan for schools, no plan for TAFEs, no plan for universities, no plan for research, no plan for manufacturing, no plan for renewable energy, no plan for good jobs and no plan to attract good jobs in the future. They have no plan except to save their own worthless jobs.