It looks like Campbell Newman is responsible for all the ills of Wayne’s World. But for Newman the economy would be humming along and national unemployment would actually be low. Or something like that. This is an argument that comes up from time to time in the threads and also on twitter, so I decided to have a look at the Labour Force stats in the ABS to see if there was something to it.
So using the Original data in table 2 I calculated an unemployment rate for each state and territory and then calculated an employment rate for Australia with and without Queensland. So what the national unemployment rate would be without Queensland being a State of Australia. (Okay – this does ignore that some jobs may be created or lost due a federal structure and the like, but I can’t unravel those effects without some very serious modelling – so I’m going to assume they’re small). I then plot the two series and the difference.
So right now it does look like our national unemployment is slightly higher due to unemployment in Queensland – but looking at the bottom of the graph it is hard to get too excited. The uptick in unemployment is lower now than in the decade of the 80s and again the decade of the mid-90s to mid-00s. Okay, so there is a cyclical effect at work. But what about the Newman government? So I truncate those graphs and blow them up to see small variations. The period I choose is December 2007 – present, so the tenure of the current federal government. The important date is March 26, 2012 – the date Campbell Newman became Premier.
Yes – national unemployment is slightly higher than it otherwise would be but for Queensland; but that has been the case since September 2009. The current Queensland government can legitimately claim that it inherited this situation.
It looks to me that the ‘Blame it on Newman’ campaign is a bit short on facts.
The Queensland economy depends strongly on mining, tourism and agriculture — all fickle.
Tel
24 Jan 13 at 2:56 pm
It would be interesting to look at the source of the unemployment, too. Is it the loss of mining and energy intensive jobs, or public sector?
Entropy
24 Jan 13 at 3:04 pm
Oh yeah, and tourism has cratered. Who would be stupid enough to spend a king/ ransom holidaying in Australia?
Entropy
24 Jan 13 at 3:05 pm
And along comes alan kohlon to bang that very drum (PTP) – via the ALPBC, of course…
P.S. I am not referring, BTW, to the rights or wrongs of power privatisation, but the use of any excuse to lay into Newman.
Rabz
24 Jan 13 at 3:11 pm
14,000 people is 0.6% of the workforce in Queensland, let alone the country. At least some proporation of those will have moved directly into employment elsewhere; going by the chart, it seems like ‘some proportion’ is most of them.
DriftForge
24 Jan 13 at 3:20 pm
A good number to find would be the proportion of those retrenched that have now found alternative employmen.
DriftForge
24 Jan 13 at 3:21 pm
What concerns me is that he is still supporting green slime legislation…. not one single arthritic piece of legislation has been overturned in relation to crap.
The best recent news I recently saw was that wobble world crap would be removed from the Great Barrier Reef.
They think its a threat… LOL.
NoFixedAddress
24 Jan 13 at 3:40 pm
And if Newman was fair dinkum about looking after his State he would eliminate every single scum green subsidy for power generation.
NoFixedAddress
24 Jan 13 at 3:43 pm
The Goose is running out of excuses … and time. He knows it. We know it. He knows that we know it.
Gillard’s entire re-election strategy will be based on promises on the never never – think Gonski, NDIS, you know Labor values. The Goose and Treasury have to come up with some fairy story that suggests these clowns can pay for it.
H B Bear
24 Jan 13 at 3:45 pm
HB B
Kindly call him what he is in fact.
He is not a Goose, he is not a black nor white Swan.
He is a labor person that owes allegiance.
NoFixedAddress
24 Jan 13 at 3:52 pm
‘Blame it on Newman’ I’m just surprised Swan didn’t blame it on the Republicans.
Gab
24 Jan 13 at 3:55 pm
@Tel 24 Jan 13 2.56pm
I give in…. what was the Qld economy built upon?
NoFixedAddress
24 Jan 13 at 3:56 pm
what does Tony Abbott have to do with this… that’s what I want to know.
duncanm
24 Jan 13 at 5:30 pm
CanDo will will be gloating of his own achievements long after Swan is political dust.
Newman has removed more bureaucracy and legislation than he has introduced.
A rare animal to be encouraged.
jumpnmcar
24 Jan 13 at 7:31 pm
Why does that come as a surprise?
This
governmentpack of useless ratbags have smeared Tony Abbott as hating women when the exact opposite is the case. Why wouldn’t they fabricate a smear against Campbell Newman.Most dishonest, incompetent and corrupt Australian government ever.
Johno
24 Jan 13 at 9:00 pm
Cat, did you just use the word ‘Fact’, when discussing Wayne Swan? Shame on you!
Greigoz
25 Jan 13 at 7:52 am
i.e. M0nty was peddling this crap
Token
25 Jan 13 at 8:05 am
All states should be using the cut backs in Federal health funding to cut the green boondoggles. Clearly there is not enough money to do everything, so setting priorities is important. It needs to be presented as a case of either health or green, and then slash the crap out of all things green.
Put the onus back on the Federal govt, and put pressure on the Greens to explain why a windmills are more important than hospital waiting lists.
Newman should start the ball rolling, with Barnett. Then the other two gutless LINOs might follow.
It really does come down to what is more important. Overbloated green schemes or health?
dianeh
25 Jan 13 at 8:58 am
If, as Kate Ellis has certainly claimed, national unemployment rates are at least partially attributable to Newman’s Qld public service cuts, then the logical solution to rising unemployment rates, at least from the government’s point of view, should be to create more Commonwelath pubic sector jobs. Someone should raise this with Kate, although it might be a tad unsporting, sort of like shooting turtles with a machine gun.
Des Deskperson
25 Jan 13 at 9:14 am
Whether or not the national unemployment figures are attributable to Newman and, if so, to what extent they are, is maybe a moot point.
If the jobs he is getting rid of are low value or no value public sector jobs “created” by the lying Slapper Bligh and Cheesey Beattie then all to the good.
These “jobs” are simply a drain on economic performance anyway so a short t erm transfer from the public sector sheltered workshops to the real world is s good thing.
Leigh Lowe
25 Jan 13 at 10:27 am
Public service jobs are a cost and terrible burden. Reducing them is a good thing. Newman should fire another 14,000 and keep it doing it until there’s perhaps no more than 10% of the current numbers left.
Frank Walker from National Tiles
25 Jan 13 at 10:34 am