Acting PM Michael McCormack has doubled down on his comments that unemployed Australians need to “turn off Stand and Netflix” and find jobs.

It comes as The Regional Australian Institute found there were up to 50,000 job vacancies across the rural parts of the country.

“It was a comment aimed at those people who indeed are refusing to go back to work, or disinclined to take up a job on offer, because they might have got into the groove of settling in nicely on their lounge,” he told Heidi Murphy on 3AW Drive.

“There are jobs in regional Australia, that shamefully and unfortunately, are going begging at the moment because there aren’t enough people to take them up.”

Mr McCormack acknowledged there were some cases in which people found themselves unemployed through no fault of their own, but said that was not always the case.

“There are others, quite frankly, who are milking the system and refusing to take those jobs on offer.”

Click PLAY to hear the interview below

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