Tim PALLAS (Werribee – Treasurer, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for Trade and Investment) (14:17): The Andrews Labor government has succeeded in delivering our jobs plan target more than two years ahead of schedule. Back in December 2020 the former member for Ripon trumpeted that Victorians needed a plan to get people back to work and back in business. Amusingly our $44 billion jobs plan was less than a month old at the time. Since November 2020, by investing in public infrastructure, incentives like regional payroll tax cuts and a jobs-focused economic agenda, we have overseen over 422,000 new jobs across the state, meeting the government’s target of 400,000 new jobs by 2025 with over two years to spare. That is more than any other state over this time frame in both raw numbers and in percentage terms.

In terms of economic growth our jobs plan has hit the mark again with 5.7 per cent growth in GSP per capita in the last financial year, the highest in the nation and three times faster than New South Wales. Compare this jobs bonanza to the record of those opposite who created around about 120,000 jobs in the four years that they were in government. That is less than 30,000 jobs a year. If they kept it up at that rate, it would take over 13 years to create 420,000 jobs. Lumbering old Jupiter would have made a lap around the sun in that time. I noted that the member for Kew observed in her inaugural speech that it is business not governments that create jobs. Well, she was partly right – Liberal governments clearly do not create jobs. They are far too busy trying to hold on to their own. Hitting our jobs target more than two years ahead of schedule proves that the Andrews Labor government does exactly that.