Eric Abetz denies report his office was urged to ‘scale up’ jobs figures
Employment minister says his advisers never recommended manipulating statistics to fit Tony Abbott’s election promise
The employment minister, Eric Abetz, has rejected claims that his
advisers urged his department to “massage” jobs figures to ensure Tony
Abbott’s key election promise of creating one million jobs over five
years was on track.
The government is due to release jobs
figures this week, but a report published on Monday suggested the
minister’s office had urged the department to revise the figures upwards
by 160,000.
Original projections of 838,100 new jobs over the
next five years did not satisfy the minister’s office and his adviser,
Josh Manuatu, according to the report.
Abetz claimed the report in the Australian was incorrect and criticised the journalist. Abetz tabled a statement from his department to support his claims.
The
minister said rather than his office pressuring the department, the
department “offered up” the figures to the minister’s office.
“The
department is not publishing employment projections ‘scaled up’ to
reflect the government’s commitment to create one million jobs. The
figures to be published this Friday are based on the employment growth
projections from the 2013-14 MYEFO [mid-year economic and fiscal
outlook].
“The department also offered the minister’s office
figures showing the potential make-up of sectoral growth taking into
account the government’s policies. However, these figures are not being
published, nor did the minister’s office ever ask the department to
publish them.”
Since Abbott’s election promise to create one
million jobs over five years, news has followed that Holden and Toyota
will leave Australia, Qantas has announced plans to cut 5,000 jobs and
Alcoa will cut 980 jobs at its Point Henry smelter.
In Senate
question time, Labor’s Kim Carr demanded that Abetz release the
correspondence between his office and the department on the jobs
figures, but the minister told the Senate that given Labor had made a
freedom of information request for the correspondence, he would abide by
that “timetable”.
Carr will move a motion on Tuesday to order
Abetz to produce the documents between his office and the department
relating to the job figures. Though the motion is likely to succeed with
the Greens’ support, the government is unlikely to comply.
“When
the Coalition’s policies are implemented, many thousands of Australians
will be relieved from the social and economic consequences from being on
the unemployment scrap heap,” Abetz said.
Labor’s employment
spokesman, Brendan O‘Connor, demanded Abetz release all documents and
emails relating to the interference by his office.
“After six
months as prime minister, Mr Abbott should have created 100,000 jobs to
be on target, instead only 33,700 have been created.
“The only fight over jobs the Abbott government is willing to have is a fight with the Department to manipulate jobs figures.”
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