Recent labour force figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that underemployment remains a serious concern and employment growth is slowing. This is in addition to the stagnation of wages which has occurred under Turnbull and his Liberals.

While federal Labor welcomes the decrease in the unemployment rate to 5.4 per cent, we note that there are now 714,600 unemployed Australians, with 19,900 more people lining the unemployment queue than when the Abbott-Turnbull Government was first elected.

We also note that full time jobs decreased by 20,600 and part time jobs increased by 32,600, and there are 1.1 million Australians wanting more work but not being able to find it.

When coupled with the number of unemployed, it means there are more than 1.8 million Australians who are under-utilised in the labour force.

The quarterly data shows the labour underutilisation rate remains too high at 13.9 per cent. The underemployment rate has now increased to 8.5 per cent.

While Turnbull may try to boast about jobs figures, the truth is the facts are more complicated. The increase in employment over the last five years is comparable to that seen under the former Labor government between 2007 and 2013, notwithstanding that during that time Australia went through the worst global financial crisis this generation has seen. Labor achievements – such as the NDIS and significant infrastructure investments – continue to be key drivers of increased employment in the economy.

Under Malcolm Turnbull and his Liberals, Australians are suffering with insecure work, stagnant wages and skyrocketing cost of living pressures.

Even the governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, has spoken of weak wages growth, commenting that “beyond these purely economic effects, the slow wages growth is diminishing our sense of shared prosperity”.

Turnbull and his Liberals have failed to acknowledge these challenges, let alone come up with any policy initiatives to deal with them. Instead, they support cuts to wages through slashing penalty rates, argue against increasing the minimum wage, and focus all their energy on advocating for an $80 billion tax cut to the big end of town.

Brendan O’Connor MP
Shadow Minister for Employment & Workplace Relations

A terminally ill refugee on Nauru has been refused entry to Australia where he hoped to receive palliative care, according to advocacy groups. The 63-year-old Afghan Hazara has advanced lung cancer and is currently receiving treatment in the regional processing centre.

Ian Rintoul, a spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, said the organisation had been in contact with the man throughout 2018.

“For a long time, there was no diagnosis although he was kept in the International Health and Medical Services clinic [in the regional processing centre],” Mr Rintoul said.

“You have to be very sick to be kept there. But he was not sent anywhere for further treatment or further tests.

“We suspect now that if he had got proper tests months ago, that the cancer may have been discovered much earlier and he may have been able to be treated.”

The individual reportedly asked to be sent to Australia to be looked after by members of the Hazara community (an ethnic group native to Hazarajat in central Afghanistan) but his request was refused.

Mr Rintoul said the Australian government was “denying the last wishes of a dying man to have some peace and comfort in his last days”.

“The government is now so obsessed with maintaining the punitive integrity of offshore detention that they have lost any sense of proportion,” he said.

This comes after an Amnesty International report in May accused the Australian government of winding back critical healthcare services at its offshore detention centre on Manus Island.

The human rights organisation said in a report that one remaining detainee who suffered a heart attack in February 2017 is yet to receive treatment and that refugees are being forced to phone doctors in Australia for emergency medical advice.

Jeremy Nadal, Freelance Journalist