Jennie George (Throsby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The government’s stimulus package has been derided by many opposition members as a wasteful cash splash. Nothing could be further from the truth, as one of my constituents explained to me in recent correspondence. He wrote:

I am aged 64, of Aged Pension age in mid-July. My wife “currently” works at Bonds at Unanderra and we have two teenage girls at high school.

I have been unemployed for nine years despite every effort to obtain employment. On 22nd December I had to get a $500 advance from Centrelink in order to manage food and other necessities over the Christmas period.

The government’s second stimulus payment early this year gave me funds to enable me to start a business. Whilst the needs were trivial, they were nevertheless out of reach, given our parlous financial position.

It enabled me to pay $80 to a Warrawong printer to print one thousand flyers, and to pay $44 to a Barrack Heights distributor to home-deliver the one thousand flyers in the Shell Cove area.

On the first day of delivery of the flyer I have secured two clients.

The nett taxable, GST-payable receipt by me will be $690 per client.

The stimulus payment therefore has:

(1)

Enabled me to resurrect a basic home-based services business

(2)

Give business to a local printer, hopefully on ongoing basis

(3)

Give business to a local home-based brochure deliverer, again on an ongoing basis

…            …            …

… the stimulus payment has seen business flow to three business operators, ASIC, the NSW OFT, the ATO, and has produced a payment saving to Centrelink.

He goes on:

The stimulus payment has also enabled one of the clients, a very good chef employed part-time by a Shellharbour City Centre restaurant, to have funds enabling him to commence a business at Thirroul employing local staff and operating a bistro in a local club …

… This will enable him to end his Newstart arrangements and he will be making GST and income tax payments to the government. He will be employing and training local staff and buying goods from local suppliers.

I shall also be doing his accounting and BAS returns, again a positive cashflow situation for me.

The stimulus payments were not just about retail spending. I thought you may be interested in how it had other effects on two recipients in the local region. If that was multiplied a few hundred thousand times across the country it would be good, don’t you think?

Thank you for giving me a new start off Newstart Mr Rudd and Mr Swan.

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