Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I'm pleased to join colleagues on the matter of public importance today. There are 151 members of the House of Representatives and we represent every corner of this country. As the member for Lalor, I represent a community under extraordinary pressure, just like every other member in the House of Representatives. In Lalor, we have gone from having 5,500 people on JobSeeker, or Newstart, in December 2019 to having almost 15,000 people on JobSeeker in August 2020. We have 6,637 businesses in receipt of JobKeeper. The estimated number of workers affected is 25,000.

This government is failing all of those people under extraordinary financial pressure. Like the member for Chifley, the people I represent are very concerned that we are finding now, after having had an enormous conversation early in the piece about casual teenagers being in receipt of too much money, that JobKeeper is funding executive bonuses and that companies are recording record profits while in receipt of JobKeeper under this government's watch.

People in my community are concerned, as they are in the communities of the member for Chifley and others who have spoken today. Dnata workers live in my community, as they do in the community of the member for Chifley, and they are very concerned to learn that while they can't get JobKeeper support because of a decision from this government Clive Palmer has been supported to the tune of $40,000 for his private jet. They are concerned about that. This government needs to take stock and take stock quickly. It continually takes a good idea like a wage subsidy and perverts it and then fails to see the perversion of it. It fails to see the impact it is actually having in the community. Similarly, as we've heard today, we have announcement after announcement—most recently the JobMaker announcement. We were promised that over 400,000 jobs would come from JobMaker, but we found out through Senate estimates from Treasury that the reality is 10 per cent of that—40,000 is the actual, real assessment.

It pains general people in the Australian community when they read these things. It pains them to hear that, after sports rorts, after community grants having been used for political ends, the ANAO is having its funding cut. It pains people to think that the Audit Office, which will expose a misuse of taxpayers' funds, has actually had its ability to hold the government to account, to shine a light and to determine transparency cut because of a budget cut. This worries Australians, and this government needs to really think about the way it's making its decisions. This government needs to act on a national integrity commission, but it says it doesn't have time. We heard the Prime Minister in question time hiding behind the pandemic, hiding behind the recession, saying that there's not enough time to get national integrity commission legislation into the parliament, although we know that the draft has been there since December.

To government members and those who have spoken today: instead of coming in to a matter of public importance debate and waving your arms around defending the government's actions, when it is clear that errors have been made, I urge you to consider these things. Consider the people in my electorate of Lalor and those Australians who are really doing it tough. They know this isn't over, even though the government would like it to be and continues to talk about it in the past tense. They know they've got tough months ahead of them. They want to know that they've got a government that has their interests at the centre of its daily work. This government needs to get serious about doing things for ordinary Australians in this incredibly difficult time and seeing us through this recession.

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