Labour leader Phil Goff says the government should be ashamed of its lack of any real plan or action to protect Kiwi jobs.
"The government has never had a plan to fight the rising tide of unemployment and hardworking Kiwis have paid the price by losing their jobs," Goff says.
"150,000 Kiwis are now unemployed, that's 41,000 more than when John Key came into power. National could have done much more to keep many of those hardworking Kiwis in their jobs.
Goff says all we've had from Key is window dressing and his jobs summit in February is now widely considered a waste of time.
"Kiwis will be looking across the Tasman and wondering why unemployment there has now started to fall, while ours continues to rise," Labour's leader says.
"The answer is Australia's government had a plan to get through the recession while National did not."
Goff says the Australian government acted early, was decisive and gave help to those who needed it. He says Key and Bill English missed their biggest opportunity to stimulate the economy and protect businesses and jobs in May's budget.
"John Key could have focused his first budget on jobs. But he didn't," Phil Goff said. "John Key could have targeted tax cuts to low income earners who were more likely to spend them immediately on necessities. But he didn't."
