Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to be able to be here to support the extension of JobKeeper, and I'm pleased that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer listened to Labor's calls to do so. We also have to remember that we're here speaking on the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (JobKeeper Payments) Amendment Bill 2020 because of the Prime Minister's and the Treasurer's belief that the economy would just snap back in September and because of their adamant refusal to listen to suggestions that support would be needed for longer. The JobKeeper wage subsidy was supported by unions and called for by unions. It was supported and called for by Labor. It was supported and called for by business, and, finally, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer caved, and introduced a wage subsidy scheme.

Members on the opposite side shouldn't spend too much time congratulating themselves about this wage subsidy scheme—it is great that they brought it in eventually, but there was a delay in bringing it in. Before the government decided to bring in this wage subsidy, we all remember seeing outside Centrelink offices the tragic lines of people who had lost their jobs. We saw those lines at Frankston Centrelink and at Mornington Centrelink, and I'm sure those lines had something to do with the government finally listening to the community campaign that I was proud to support to give Mornington Centrelink a reprieve and the people of Mount Eliza, Mornington and beyond a reprieve so they could still have their Centrelink office until March of next year and Frankston wouldn't be even more overburdened.

So I'm pleased that JobKeeper is being extended, but of course there are still so many businesses and people who were left out of the scheme as it was and who will be left out of the scheme as it will be. This government has deliberately excluded many people. In my electorate, in my community, the 200 or so people who worked at the Peninsula Aquatic Recreation Centre weren't eligible for JobKeeper and lost their positions. Employees at the Monash University Peninsula campus aren't eligible for JobKeeper. Casuals who hadn't worked at the same place for 12 months—which includes so many people, young people in particular in hospitality and retail—are not eligible for JobKeeper.

Under this legislation today, the Treasurer has extraordinary power to set the rates and eligibility under the extension and changes to JobKeeper. When he does that it is important that the Treasurer considers the people and businesses in his home state and my home state of Victoria. In my electorate of Dunkley, I have had many businesses and employees reach out to me about the way in which JobKeeper has been essential but, in many instances, not good enough. Jen, who works in the arts and events industry, which has been shut down since March, with the likelihood of not reopening until sometime next year, managed to get herself and some of her administrative staff into some other work and onto JobKeeper, finally. But it's not enough to cover all of her personal expenses. It's just been enough to help her and others get by. Of course, she wasn't able to pick up any other work, because JobKeeper specifies that you can have JobKeeper only for one job. She's one of the many people in my electorate who are concerned about what is going to happen to them under this new scheme.

Jennifer has spoken to many constituents in my electorate, and they have been generous to share their situation with me. In the time I have today, I can't tell all of their individual stories, but I want to make sure that Fiona from the hospitality industry, Lisa who works in the higher education industry, Pauline in retail, Tori in education, Noni who's a draftsperson, Rebecca who works in retail support, Leanne who's a cake-maker, Casey from the human resources industry who runs a small business, Alysha who's just out of my electorate but works in performing arts and Nick who's a visual artist know that the time and effort they put into telling their stories has not gone astray, that I have heard them and my Labor colleagues have heard them. Many of these people were working more than two part-time jobs to make up the equivalent of full-time hours because they work in a casualised and fractured labour market and industry. Many of these people lost one or more of those jobs before JobKeeper came in, so now they're working less than 20 hours and facing JobKeeper being cut to $750. The amount they were getting before the cut was only just enough to help them get by, and they're very fearful of what will happen to them when these new changes come in. These are the businesses and people that the Treasurer needs to be cognisant of as he is designing the rates and the eligibility criteria.

Today I spoke to Peter Negri from my electorate. He is so concerned for his 90 employees across the country that he asked if perhaps I could put my phone on speaker while I was in the chamber and he could speak for himself. I had to tell him that that wasn't possible. He was anxious to make sure that I let people in this place know, in particular that I let the federal government know, that he has staff members who have said to him, 'I don't know how I'm going to live.' He feels that the federal government isn't hearing what needs to be done on the ground and too often takes a top-down approach. Peter runs a travel company that specifically takes people with disabilities on holidays. He's not able at the moment to use the tax write-offs that have been offered because he hasn't got any income as the tours can't happen. He can't access the 50 per cent backed government loans that this government announced with much fanfare. The ANZ has said no because he doesn't have any income—and, anyway, the speed at which they're processing loans is considerably low. Out of the 90 staff he has across the country, he was only able to get 17 of them onto the JobKeeper package. There are some that are now working second jobs and others have had to go onto JobSeeker, so they've lost their connection to their employer. And, because of the continued health restrictions and the lockdowns and the border restrictions, if he doesn't resume touring by mid-September, he may have to close a business which employs 90 people, is in Carrum Downs in my electorate and helps people with a disability get holidays. His story needs to be told.

So does Damian's story. He invested $200,000 in his business in the sporting industry setting up a gym just before the lockdown and therefore he wasn't sure if he was able to access JobKeeper. He was advised by the ATO he could get it in a provisional capacity because his business had been open for a week. It was open for a short period of time as well in July. He's recently, in the last week, been advised he now has something like a $14,000 bill to the ATO because they've decided he wasn't eligible for the JobKeeper he has received, and, even if he gets JobKeeper now under the new scheme, that won't alleviate the debt. How is he going to pay that back? These are real people—not statistics but real people. This government needs to make sure that it is flexible and innovative in the way it implements JobKeeper, in particular for the people in our great state of Victoria, because it's important for them, it's important for the economy and it's important for jobs.

In the time that's been allocated to me, I also want to say just briefly before I conclude that the fair work changes that are in this legislation have, of course, been the subject of some change since they were first announced. Labor warned the government they shouldn't extend emergency industrial relations powers to businesses that had fully recovered or even better, so the decision to only extend them to 10 per cent threshold is a win. But the way out of this recession, the way to build back better, is not to employ the industrial relations deregulation agenda of the Reagan and Thatcher years. The government cannot, under the guise of a global pandemic, wreak havoc on the conditions and the pay of workers. The government needs to be alert to the fact that workers in my electorate are not going to accept being abandoned by a government that has an ideological belief that workers shouldn't be protected by the IR system.

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