Australian unemployment jumps to 4-year high
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1) Unemployment in Australia rose to its highest level in nearly four years in February, showing the global downturn continues to bite despite big interest rate cuts and the government pumping billions of dollars into the economy.
2) The Australian Bureau of Statistics said Thursday that unemployment rose to 5.2 percent from 4.8 percent in January. Economists expected the jobless rate would rise to 5 percent. Total employment rose by just 1,800 to 10.8 million, but full-time employment decreased by 53,800. Part-time employment was up 55,600.
3) "These figures show that the global financial crisis and global recession is impacting on Australia and it's impacting on the jobs of Australians," Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters in Canberra. "The government's always said that we wouldn't be immune from the global financial crisis and the global recession which has wreaked so much havoc in economies around the world."
4) The global downturn that began to bite last year has brought about a swift reversal of fortunes for Australia's economy, which has enjoyed 17 consecutive years of growth fueled by voracious demand from China and elsewhere for its mineral exports.
5) Although Australia is not yet officially in a recession, figures released last week indicate it could be headed that way. Australia's economy shrank 0.5 percent in the last quarter of 2008 -- the economy's first contraction in eight years. Australia considers its economy in recession if it experiences two consecutive quarters of contraction.
6) The bad jobs news came despite the efforts of the federal government and the Reserve Bank of Australia to bolster the economy. The government passed two stimulus packages totaling 52.4 billion Australian dollars ($34 billion) in the last few months, and the central bank cut its key interest rate by 4 percentage points from September to February.
7) "Any job loss in Australia is one too many as far as I'm concerned, but had we waited and done nothing instead of acting decisively, these unemployment figures would be much worse," Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.
8) Prospects for employment remain gloomy, with the federal government predicting a jobless rate of 5.5 percent by June, and 7 percent by the same time next year.
9) The latest figures showed states most associated with mining and manufacturing were hit the hardest, with Western Australia experiencing the biggest jump in unemployment -- surging to 4.2 percent in February from 3.3 percent in the previous month.
10) The Reserve Bank left the key interest rate unchanged at 3.25 percent earlier this month, but many economists predicted that would change in the wake of Thursday's grim news.
11) Commonwealth Bank senior economist John Peters said he expected the bank to cut the rate to 2.75 percent on April 7, from its current 45-year low. "The Reserve Bank will be doing some more cutting ... although the large cuts are behind us," he said.


Australian unemployment jumps to 5-year high
(APW_ENG_20090409.0149)
1) Unemployment in Australia rose to its highest level in more than five years in March, reflecting the continuing fallout from the global economic crisis.
2) The Australian Bureau of Statistics said Thursday that unemployment rose to 5.7 percent from 5.2 percent in February -- the highest level since October 2003, when the jobless rate reached 5.8 percent.
3) Economists had predicted a jobless rate of 5.4 percent in March.
4) Total employment dropped by 34,700 to 10.8 million. Full-time employment decreased by 38,900, while part-time employment rose by 4,200.
5) "These figures are sobering news," Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters in Canberra. "This global financial crisis and global recession has hit jobs around the world and, of course, is having a significant impact on jobs in this country."
6) In February, the federal government predicted a jobless rate of 5.5 percent by June, rising to 7 percent by mid-2010.
7) "There was never any doubt that employment would weaken, though we had thought the decline would continue to be more gradual," said John Edwards, HSBC chief economist of Australia and New Zealand. "We expect the unemployment rate to increase towards at least 7.5 percent in the first quarter of next year."


Australian jobless rate at 7-year high 5.7 percent
(APW_ENG_20090611.0200)
1) Australia's unemployment rate rose to a seven-year high of 5.7 percent in May, government figures showed Thursday, reflecting job cuts at companies amid the slump.
2) "We've always said we were not immune from the global recession," said Employment Minister Julia Gillard, which said the increase was in line with market expectations.
3) The government predicted last month that the unemployment rate will peak at 8.5 percent in mid-2011, leaving 1 million people looking for work. In April, the jobless rate unexpectedly fell to 5.5 percent.
4) A survey released Wednesday showed Australian consumers swung from pessimism to optimism for the first time in 17 months after the economy avoided slipping into recession in the first quarter.
5) The Westpac-Melbourne Institute index of consumer sentiment posted its biggest increase in 22 years in June, leaping to 100.1 points from 88.8 from May. A reading above 100 means optimists outnumber pessimists.


Australia ' s jobless rate remains steady
(APW_ENG_20090806.0208)
1) Australia's unemployment rate held steady at 5.8 percent in July, bucking expectations of an increase amid the economic downturn, according to government figures released Thursday.
2) Economists had expected the seasonally adjusted rate to reach at least 6 percent.
3) Part-time employment increased 48,200 to 3.203 million, while full-time jobs dropped by 16,000 to 7.590 million, apparently a reflection of employers cutting hours rather than positions.
4) The Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed that total employment rose by 32,200 to 10.794 million.
5) Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the static figure proved that the government's stimulus spending was working to support jobs and applauded employers for holding onto employees in preparation for an eventual economy recovery.
6) "The figures indicate that Australian companies have taken sensible steps to retain skilled workers where possible and in some cases offering for workers the option of converting to part-time employment," she said. "It's far better for a working person to be kept in a job than to be unemployed."
7) Analysts hope the July result means the jobless rate may not deteriorate to the 8.5 percent peak in 2010 forecast by the federal government.
8) "The Australian labor market continues to defy the odds," ANZ economist Riki Polygenis said.
9) But Gillard warned that the global recession continued to affect the domestic labor market.
10) "Even the most optimistic economic forecasters expect the global recession to hit our economy," she said. "When even the most optimistic forecasters are saying that, it's very important for the government to continue to support jobs today."
11) The government's stimulus spending has focused on infrastructure to create jobs and boost local economies.


Australia jobless rate rises slightly to 5.3 pct
(APW_ENG_20100311.0170)
1) Australia's unemployment rate edged up slightly to 5.3 percent in February, the first rise since peaking at 5.8 percent last October, the government said Thursday.
2) Just 400 jobs were added in February, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Economists had expected the jobless rate to edge up to 5.4 percent with 10,000 jobs being created in February.
3) Federal Employment Minister Julia Gillard called it "a steady result," also noting a slight increase in the number of hours worked.
4) "We are seeing employers move to taking on more full-time employees and reducing part-time work," Gillard told reporters.
5) The data showed the creation of 11,400 full-time jobs, but an 11,000 drop in part-time workers. January's jobless rates was revised down to 5.2 percent after initial figures last month put the rate at 5.3 percent.
6) "I think this is showing us the benefits of cooperation between employers, employees and unions during the global financial crisis, where many businesses moved to lesser working hours so that they could hold people in work ... and now as they can they are moving peole to a greater number of hours," Gillard said.
7) Australia narrowly avoided recession during the global economic crisis, recording only one quarter of contraction -- in the three months through December 2008.
8) Since late 2008, the government has rolled out a more than 40 billion Australian dollar ($37 billion) stimulus spending program, and the central bank slashed interest rates to try to protect the economy.


Australian PM, 3 weeks on job, calls Aug elections
(APW_ENG_20100717.0419)
1) Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who called elections Saturday just three weeks after taking power, was once considered too far left to win a national vote. But polls and analysts say she has as good a chance of wooing the Australian public as her opponent: He was long thought too conservative to appeal to the mainstream.
2) Buoyed by strong support for her new leadership -- she grabbed power in a surprise ruling Labor Party coup -- Gillard scheduled elections for Aug. 21.
3) Gillard has hit the ground running, attempting to steer a new course in key policy areas, saying the government had "lost its way" under her predecessor, Kevin Rudd.
4) "We would go into our second term with some lessons learnt," Gillard told reporters at Parliament House. "We would be able to implement and deliver programs differently than we have in the past."
5) Opinion polls give Labor a slight advantage but predict a tight race against a resurgent conservative opposition Liberal Party led by Tony Abbott.
6) The two opponents could not be more different and each may struggle to win over the political middle ground essential to an Australian election victory.
7) Gillard, Australia's first female premier, is a Welsh-born atheist with a common law partner. She says she chose career over children -- a decision for which she has been criticized by political opponents as unfit for leadership -- and repeatedly denies that the left-wing politics of her 20s had ever been communist.
8) Abbott is a staunch Roman Catholic social conservative, married with three daughters, who was recently rebuked by Gillard for cautioning Australia's young women against having sex before marriage. Gillard advised him to mind his own business.
9) "They're coming from backgrounds where Tony Abbott probably worries that people think he's a bit too conservative, and Julia Gillard worries that people think she is too left wing, and they're both heading for the middle ground," said John Warhurst, an Australian National University political scientist. "I think at the extremes you'll get a little bit of support drifting to both of them and it might cancel each other out."
10) Analysts say Gillard's decision to capitalize on her early positive opinion polls and opposition disarray rather than take more time to establish herself in the job is a risky strategy. Warhurst said Gillard had effectively surrendered the incumbent advantage.
11) "You've now got a new prime minister of three weeks against a new opposition leader of eight months -- it's a remarkable turn of events," he said.
12) While both have changed their parties' direction, each still maintains support for major foreign policy issues, including Australia's deployment of 1,550 troops to Afghanistan.
13) The election is likely to hang on a series of tough issues -- climate change, asylum seekers and record-high public debt -- on which the two have taken divergent positions.
14) Gillard has attempted to stem a surge in asylum seekers trying to reach Australia by boat -- more than 4,000 in the past year -- by asking its tiny neighbor East Timor to host a U.N.-endorsed regional refugee processing hub.
15) Labor has condemned a Liberal plan to deter asylum seekers by introducing temporary protection visas, which would enable the government to send refugees back to their homelands if conditions there improved.
16) Gillard was deputy to Rudd, who became a Labor hero when he led the party to a crushing election victory in November 2007 after 11 years in opposition.
17) But he lost support with a series of unpopular political moves earlier this year, including shelving a key pledge to make major industries pay for the carbon gas they emit. Gillard has yet to announce a new Labor policy on reducing Australia's carbon gas emissions, which are among the world's highest per capita.
18) Under Abbott, the Liberals abandoned their polluter-pays policy and proposed that Australia cut greenhouse emissions by paying major polluters taxpayer-funded incentives. No penalties would be imposed for failure to reduce emissions under his plan.
19) Abbott has led an attack on the government over its 52 billion Australian dollar ($45 billion) economic stimulus spending that helped Australia scrape through the global economic recession with a single quarter of mild economic contraction in late 2008.
20) Abbott told a conservative party meeting in Queensland, a key state to the outcome of the next election, the government has wasted money and the leadership change from Rudd to Gillard was a "seamless transition from incompetence to incompetence."
21) Gillard has promised to return Australia to a surplus budget in three years.
22) Labor currently holds 83 of the 150 seats in the House of Representatives, where parties form government. But it lacks a majority in the Senate, where it holds only 32 of the 76 seats.


Welsh migrant becomes Australia ' s first female PM
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1) Julia Gillard was a sickly child when her family left her native Wales in search of a warmer climate. She thrived and went on to become Australia's first female prime minister.
2) Gillard was 4 years old, the younger of two sisters, when the family left the Welsh coal port of Barry for the South Australian state capital of Adelaide. She had been hospitalized with pneumonia as a child.
3) Gillard studied law at universities in Adelaide and Melbourne, where she became a leader in the national student union movement. At 29, she became a partner in a prominent Melbourne law firm and specialized in industrial law. Gillard was a Labor Party state political staffer before entering the federal parliament in 1998.
4) She became deputy Labor leader under former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd after striking a deal with him in 2006 to topple then-leader Kim Beazley.
5) Gillard lives with a common law partner, Tim Mathieson, a hairdresser by profession. They have been together since 2006.
6) Gillard, 48, decided as a teenager that she never wanted children. Her stance has led to attacks from political opponents who say she is unsuitable to lead because she lacks empathy with Australian families.
7) Unlike her opponent Tony Abbott and predecessor Rudd, who are both observant Christians, Gillard has declared herself atheist.
8) She has been accused of being a communist over ties to the far-left group Socialist Forum -- allegations she denies. Gillard has also been branded an abortion advocate for her founding role in the pro-choice group Emily's List Australia.
9) The Rudd-Gillard leadership team led Labor into government at general elections in 2007.
10) Party power-brokers blamed Rudd for dragging down the government's popularity in recent opinion polls, and Gillard seized the leadership unopposed when she challenged him on June 24 in a party ballot.


Australian Labor Party wins enough support to rule
(APW_ENG_20100907.0941)
1) Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard barely retained power when the last two independent legislators made kingmakers by deadlocked elections ended a tense 17-day standoff and agreed to join her government. Her next challenge? Keeping the unlikely bedfellows of her coalition together.
2) Gillard managed Tuesday to persuade sufficient independent lawmakers to support her center-left Labor Party to form the first minority government in the House of Representatives in 67 years.
3) Australia's first female prime minister promised the government will be stable over the next three years, although the defection of a single lawmaker would bring down her administration. While Labor expels lawmakers for failing to vote along party lines, Gillard must get three disparate independent lawmakers plus one from the Greens party to support her legislative agenda.
4) That agenda includes imposing a new 30 percent tax on iron ore and coal miners' profits, which are burgeoning with the voracious demand for raw materials from Chinese and Indian manufacturers, and making Australia's biggest polluters pay for carbon gas emissions.
5) Her newfound supporters have their own agendas. The Greens want gays to be allowed to marry and Australian troops withdrawn from Afghanistan while independent Andrew Wilkie wants federal action to protect problem gamblers from poker machines.
6) Gillard has rejected legal recognition of gay marriage, but has agreed to allow a parliamentary debate on the future of Australia's deployment of 1,550 troops in Afghanistan. She has agreed to take legal advice on what federal powers the government has over the availability of poker machines, which are regulated by state legislation.
7) "No one should underestimate the problems Julia Gillard's got," said Australian National University political scientist Norman Abjorensen.
8) "She's got to satisfy people on the left and right of Labor and it's a very uneasy coalition of interests to keep in check on every available issue," Abjorensen added.
9) Among foreign government leaders to congratulate Gillard on forming a government were British Prime Minister David Cameron and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key.
10) The British conservative leader and Gillard spoke by phone Tuesday, and both stressed their commitment to the Afghanistan mission, Cameron's spokesman Steve Field told reporters.
11) Key, the conservative leader of Australia's neighbor New Zealand, said he had already established a strong relationship with Gillard since she came to power in an internal Labor Party coup less than three months ago and he looked forward to continuing to work with her.
12) The government will be unstable by the standards of modern Australia, where parties have governed with strictly disciplined majorities since 1943.
13) But some analysts believe that Gillard's minority government would be more stable than one created by opposition leader Tony Abbott's conservative coalition, which enlisted only 74 of the 76 seats it needed in the 150-seat House of Representatives.
14) Nick Economou, a Monash University political scientist, said Abbott, who rules out ever making polluters pay for their carbon emissions, could not deal with the Greens, who support charging polluters.
15) The Greens won 12 of the 76 seats in the Senate, where neither Gillard nor Abbott command a majority.
16) "If Tony had become prime minister, he would have quickly run into serious trouble with the Senate," which would have resulted in an early election, Economou said.
17) In return for the Greens' support, Gillard has agreed to a range of their demands, including establishing an expert committee to investigate how Australia could introduce a price for carbon gas pollution.
18) Gillard has also agreed to give up some of a prime minister's traditional tactical advantages in return for the independents' support. While prime ministers have the freedom to call elections at times that suit their political interests, Gillard has agreed to confer with allies before setting an election date.
19) She has also agreed to change rules of parliamentary procedures to give individual lawmakers a greater voice.
20) The last two independents to agree to support Gillard's government, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, are former members of the conservative Nationals party, which is part of Abbott's coalition.
21) Gillard rewarded the two rural-based lawmakers by promising 10 billion Australian dollars ($9 billion) in new investment for rural schools and hospitals.
22) She has also offered Oakeshott a Cabinet post, which he had yet to accept.
23) Oakeshott said on Tuesday that governing with the support of four lawmakers from outside Labor would be "ugly, but it's going to be beautiful in its ugliness."
24) Gillard said her deal to deliver a government demonstrated that the Australian political system worked.
25) "This process, born of parliamentary deadlock, has resulted in more openness, transparency and reform in how we conduct our parliament and the business of government than at any other time on modern Australian politics," Gillard told reporters.
26) "Can I say we live in a lively and a resilient democracy and it works," she added.
27) The lawmakers from outside Labor have agreed to oppose any no-confidence motion in the prime minister which would bring down her government.
28) Abbott said it was up to the government's performance whether it survived the full three-year term or was brought down by such a motion.
29) "If the government is seriously incompetent, it should be gone as quickly as possible," Abbott told reporters.