Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly I would like to put on record my sincere thanks and appreciation to all the amazing workers who have continued to serve our community every single day in the face of sometimes quite extraordinary challenges throughout this COVID-19 pandemic—the frontline workers who risk their own health and wellbeing every day in order to protect ours; the educators who help nurture, develop and enrich the lives of our children; but also the unsung heroes of COVID-19, the people who deliver often now to our doors the very things we have needed and relied on during this period of isolation and lockdown; those who have been serving us in supermarkets or the pop-up stores, markets and takeaways; or those local government workers who are diligently maintaining our public spaces and essential services. Many of them have had to adjust to a difficult new environment: modified jobs, reduced hours and, of course, fear that their duties may expose them and their families to the virus. We are living throughout historic and, frankly, catastrophic times. We saw within one week in my home city of Newcastle a collapse of jobs and wages that dwarfs the growth of the last four years. Centrelink lines have spilled out of the office, down the street and around the corner for days on end.

Throughout this crisis, the opposition have worked constructively with the government to get the best outcomes for the nation. The decisions that have been made certainly are not the decisions that a Labor government would always have adopted, but we have never allowed the perfect to be the enemy of the good. We have always been as supportive as possible.

But there is no hiding the fact that the Morrison government's implementation of some elements of the COVID-19 response have been sadly lacking. A case in point is the JobKeeper payment. In recent weeks, I have had been absolutely inundated with calls for information, advice and help around the government's COVID-19 responses in general, but JobKeeper has consistently been the No. 1 issue of concern in my community. Let me be clear: Labor supports the principle of JobKeeper. It was indeed Labor that argued for the dire need for a wage subsidy scheme before this government finally relented. We understand that, unless we protect people's livelihoods, a contagion of cascading disasters could quickly develop, but too many people have missed out on the JobKeeper scheme. We know of the one million casualised workers and people in the arts and entertainment industries, along with those in the retail, accommodation and food sectors, who are all missing out. It needs to fix this and needs to get us back on track.

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