Aside from the "one hour a week" thing, there is also some other statistical jiggerypokery, for example a university student, a recipient of old age or disability is not counted as unemployed if not working, but is counted as employed if working.
More significantly for this discussion, the "employment" rate has remained steady, but the
type of jobs has changed from permanent full-time to casual part-time. Having a full-time job, even a minimum wage one, is preferred by many people to having a part-time casual job. The auto worker who had a guaranteed 40hr and wage, overtime, sick and holiday pay, is now a (for example) cleaner who is given 5hr shifts so they don't have to give him meal breaks, he gets 4x 5hr shifts a week, they can be cancelled with 2 hours' notice and he gets nothing, and he has neither sick nor holiday pay. But he's still employed.
This is why there is the concept of
underemployment, where the person is employed but would like more work - nobody collects statistics on who would like permanent employment vs casual, since it is more or less assumed that essentially everyone would rather a permanent job than a casual one.
These facts and concepts are readily available even to members of parliament.
https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1819/Quick_Guides/UnderemploymentAre you seriously suggesting that a 40 year old unemployed factory dressmaker or a 50yo unemployed auto worker should just go and do a law degree and end up on the legal admission rolls? Your grasp on the realities of the working class is about as firm as a toddler's grasp on the soap in the bath. You are suffering from a common confusion about free market capitalism: while
anyone can make their way up, not
everyone can make their way up.
Public policy must be for
everyone. That is why our country is called a
commonwealth, and not, god forbid, a republic. That some people win the lottery does not make all their neighbours less poor. And for the genuinely poor, making their way up to partner in a Collins St law firm is only slightly more likely than winning the lottery.
I am not interested in those prospects, since after all we only need so many corporate lawyers. I am more interested that the poor have opportunities to do productive work. Formerly they had those opportunities, in recent years we have given those opportunities to China, instead. I think it is good to give foreign aid, but I would rather we gave them our cash than our jobs, and I think that since China is now the world's second-biggest economy (or biggest if the yuan were floated) they probably don't need any more help from us.
Our defence industries are owned by a French company. Our telecommunications by a Singaporean company. Even the port of Darwin is owned by a Chinese company. Our ore is being dug up and the profits from its sale going to Dutch and American companies. This is not of benefit to Australia or its citizens, or certainly not the working class. The middle class are doing well now with access to cheap casual labour and cheap foreign goods, but in time those finance and legal jobs will go overseas, too. The trade deficit cannot go on forever, the bills have to be paid. Once we have been drained dry those foreign companies will leave, and even the middle class will struggle.
The Liberal Party was created by a union of the Free Trade and Protectionist parties, so their thinking has always been muddled. The Labor Party can't even spell labour, so it is not a great surprise that from Whitlam on they tried to destroy the working class in favour of middle class lefties. I realise that the major parties like to be oblivious to this, but: a quarter of all Australian voters wanted
neither major party.
Both major parties had their primary vote decline since the last federal election.
Australia is declining because it has made its productive class less productive. This decline is being concealed by house price and debt inflation, but Wile E Coyote can only hang out in space for so long before dropping. Things will change. You can have gradual and managed change, or you can continue to stick your fingers in your ears and go "lah lah I can't hear you everyone is good!" and then get a sudden drop.
We made a big mistake in making our capital city in a valley in the middle of nowhere.