Nationals Senator Matt Canavan has thrown doubt on the accuracy or significance of the official unemployment rate, telling a Queensland Senate candidates forum that “look, whatever the unemployment rate is”, it would be being adversely affected by workplace vaccine mandates.
Canavan was replying to a question from a nurse who was unemployed due to her non-vaccinated status. She said she was still listed as employed, so was her agency replacement in her public hospital job, and so was her private sector replacement — “making three new jobs in all”.
Canavan’s response was ambiguous, so later Crikey asked him to clarify. He told Crikey:
Look it’s the best metric we have, and it’s got a lot of inadequacies. There’s lots of other issues with it [apart from vaccine mandates]. If you’re employed for an hour a week you’re classed as employed. Whether it’s 4% or 5% who really knows?
Canavan then went to talk to attendees, most of whom were keen to talk to him about vaccination compulsion.
Much of the Morrison government’s campaign has been premised on getting the unemployment rate down to 4%, “the lowest since the 1970s” as its advertising has had it. Much hope was placed on the possibility that it would score a “number with a three in front of it”.
This did not occur, and Canavan’s sudden casualness with the figure’s status — which occurred on Saturday night before the release of the current 5.1% inflation figure — may indicate a sudden desire on the Coalition’s part for a “conscious uncoupling’ from statistics-led politics.
The Coalition is facing a Reserve Bank rate rise next week, and another ABS unemployment figure (for April) will hit before polling day. Does it know something we don’t about which way it’s going to go?
