Queensland’s unemployment rate is the highest for three years, at 6.3% in seasonally adjusted terms.

State Treasurer Tim Nicholls said Prime Minister Julia Gillard was falsely attributing the rise in unemployment to the Queensland government as the slowdown in the resources sector begins to bite.

“If Ms Gillard is looking to lay blame as to the rise in the unemployment rate, I suggest she looks in her own backyard,” Nicholls said.

“The introduction of both the carbon tax and the MRRT has significantly undermined business and consumer confidence which has contributed to today’s figures.

“Queensland Treasury’s estimates show her Government’s shambolic carbon tax could cost as many as 21,000 Queenslanders their jobs by 2020.”

The carbon tax is forecast to reduce Queensland’s economic output by almost $10 billion a year by the end of the decade.

“Labor also failed to provide any new funding for critical road, rail and port infrastructure in the 2012-13 Federal Budget, leaving the Queensland government to shoulder the infrastructure burden alone,” Nicholls said.

“The Gillard government keeps taking from Queenslanders -- taking with its job-destroying carbon tax and taking with its MRRT. They need to step up and take the blame.”