Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's wonderful to follow the member in his contribution to this debate. There are many things, obviously, that are grown in the Northern Territory in addition to the extractive industries, including the arts, but critically it seems that the Northern Territory have become expert in the development of the aphrodisiac sector with some of the products that they are creating, and we celebrate their achievement and contribution to the country. In the end, I'm looking forward to the member bringing down trays of Kensington pride mangoes that we can all enjoy in this parliament. It is a product that I enjoy, as I am sure many other members do as well.

Unfortunately, there has been some misinformation included in the member's speech, particularly around the claimed absence of a contribution from the Morrison government to sectors like the arts and cultural sectors, none of which were excluded from the JobKeeper subsidy. But, if it makes him feel better to mislead the parliament, that's his choice. In the end, the only one sector that was excluded from the JobKeeper subsidy was the banks. The banks were the ones who were excluded. In fact, if you're in the arts or cultural sector and you're employed by an employer, you are entitled to access JobKeeper in exactly the same way as everybody else. But the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance and the unions went around and deliberately misinformed the cultural sector about the application of JobKeeper to insert their relevance, to give the Labor Party something to rail against without actually understanding the practical solution. In fact, what we did is we made sure that we provided assistance not just through the JobKeeper subsidy but through all of the additional support, through the JobSeeker regime to make sure that—

Mr Gosling interjecting—

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