Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I always enjoy a good speech from the member of Watson in this chamber. No-one else can stretch 30 seconds of thought into a 30-minute speech quite like him. While the rest of this House is in here talking about how to help Australians, the Labor Party is in here talking about how to help their donors out. It is absolutely appalling. We had 25 minutes of how this will adversely impact the unions' capacity to enter workplaces. Only five minutes out of 30 minutes was about how this piece of legislation will continue to help all Australians during this pandemic. They stand over there and they criticise us. We know that comparison is the thief of joy, but for the Labor Party to come in here and talk about government debt over and over again—you are just making yourself miserable and you should stop.

As for the arguments around how reducing the power of the union movement to intervene in conversations at workplaces between bosses and workers is somehow adverse to Australians at this time of all times, this an idea so cunning that, if you put a tail on it, you'd have to call it a weasel. We are in here today talking about how to help ordinary Australians and businesses trying to get through this. The whole idea that the union movement that represents fewer members in the private sector than the CEO of Woolworths, the CEO of Coles, the managers at Rio Tinto and BHP somehow speaks for Australian workers is absurd.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in one of the biggest dual health and economic crises we have ever seen. Globally, over 800,000 lives have tragically been lost and many more livelihoods have been destroyed. As I stand here today, my thoughts are with the families of all those who have lost loved ones and are in mourning. I also stand with the people of Victoria through this difficult time of extreme lockdowns as a result of their second wave. Finally, I thank all the frontline emergency service personnel and health workers who have endured many challenges through this crisis. I particularly want to thank pharmacists who, at the beginning of this crisis, were not able to move to telehealth and took on the role of dealing directly with the public, giving the public assurance around what they could do. Many of them were not able to get hold of PPE equipment. Therefore, they were very brave in the way that they continued to assist their community during this period. We have to thank our doctors and our nurses, who don't receive enough praise for what they do, as well as the police, the paramedics, the Australian Defence Force, counsellors, social workers and everyone who is contributing to keeping Australians safe and getting us through this crisis.

The economic effects of this pandemic cannot be understated. The OECD has projected a drop in GDP of over 10 per cent for countries including Spain, France, the UK—which recently announced a 20 per cent drop—and Italy. New Zealand's GDP is expected to fall by nearly nine per cent, while the OECD estimates Australia's GDP will fall by around six per cent.

As someone who has started his own business, I understand the day-to-day struggles of keeping one afloat. As I speak to business owners across my electorate, like Simone and Kosta of Illie in Narrabeen, they tell me how important JobKeeper has been to keep their business operating. But JobKeeper doesn't just keep them open; it keeps employees getting paid, which means the economy keeps moving.

As the impacts of the coronavirus are still to be felt by businesses across Australia, the government is responding by extending the JobKeeper payment by an additional six months, targeting support to those organisations which have been significantly impacted. This bill extends the prescribed period of the coronavirus payment framework for the JobKeeper payment from 31 December 2020 to 28 March 2021. This will allow the Treasurer to extend and make the changes to the JobKeeper rules up until 28 March next year. The bill also amends the information-sharing arrangements to enable the ATO to share JobKeeper payment information with Commonwealth, state and territory government agencies to assist them in their efforts to address the impacts of the coronavirus.

The lower JobKeeper payment rate will be paid for those whose total hours of work and paid leave were less than 80 hours over the two most recent consecutive fortnightly pay periods or the four most recent consecutive weekly pay periods that ended before 1 March 2020 or 1 July 2020. The period with the higher number of hours worked is to be used for employees with 1 March 2020 eligibility. Having two tiers strikes a balance between making payments more aligned with usual hours worked and limiting complexity for employers.

The Australian government is focused on measures that will help keep businesses in business and employees in jobs. These key objectives are driving everything the government are doing through our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Temporary amendments were made to the Fair Work Act in April to support the practical operation of the JobKeeper scheme and help to keep Australians employed and connected to their workplace. These provisions have been absolutely critical to keeping business going and keeping more people in work. Research has found that three out of four surveyed employers used the flexibilities provided for by the provisions. Almost all surveyed employers that used the flexibilities saw them as 'important to essential' for the continued operation of the businesses and for employees to keep their jobs. Eighty per cent of surveyed employers support the continuation of the JobKeeper flexibilities for a further period of time, with job losses and business closure being the most commonly cited impacts of not being able to use the provisions into the future.

Schedule 2 of the bill extends the flexibilities in the Fair Work Act for a further temporary period out to March 2021 for employers who remain on JobKeeper after 28 March 2020 and for those who are no longer on JobKeeper but have not yet recovered and remain in financial distress. The annual leave flexibility provisions will not be extended. These will be repealed on 28 September 2020 as originally proposed, with parties reverting to their standard annual leave arrangements from this date. Qualifying employers will be able to access the same temporary flexibilities in the Fair Work Act, with the exception of the annual leave provisions for those employees in relation to whom they are entitled to receive the JobKeeper payment. Qualifying employers will have satisfied the relevant decline-in-turnover test to qualify for the JobKeeper payment and are therefore still experiencing substantial financial hardship. It is appropriate that these employers are able to continue to access the full range of flexibility measures for employees receiving the JobKeeper payment, aside from the ability to request the employee to take annual leave.

There are safeguards to protect employees. Legacy employers must meet the 10-per-cent-decline-in-turnover test and must have obtained the relevant certificate from an independent eligible financial service provider attesting to this before giving a JobKeeper-enabling direction in relation to duties and location of work or making agreements with employees around days and times of work. Small-business employers with fewer than 15 employees will have the option of making a statutory declaration to this fact for a relevant quarter. Legacy employers will no longer be able to use a JobKeeper-enabling standdown direction to reduce employees' hours to zero. This reflects that they are in the early stages of recovery and expect to gradually return to their normal levels of operation. Instead, they will be able to reduce an employee's hours down to a minimum of 60 per cent of the employee's ordinary hours as at 1 March 2020 and cannot require an employee to work less than two hours on a day on which the employee performs work. This means employees who are no longer receiving the JobKeeper amount will have a minimum guaranteed threshold of the number of hours they will work. This 60 per cent level reflects variations made to modern awards with the support of employer groups and unions.

These are uncertain times. However, since the beginning of the pandemic, the government has been on the front foot in fighting the virus, protecting Australians and securing as many jobs as possible. The coalition government will continue to support employees and employers, saving lives and livelihoods.

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