Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

What a defence of the government and their lack of action on jobs in Australia today. We had four minutes attacking the Labor Party and one minute talking about what the government might actually be doing. Perhaps it's because the government is doing so little that that's the way the member opposite decided to go. When you've got over two million Australians currently unemployed or underemployed, surely the government needs to do more than it is doing. Surely the government is saying, 'What else can we do to build our economy, to grow the pie, to help Australians get out of what was a recession? How are we going to do that post pandemic? I know—the answer is a pay cut, clearly, for all those workers that are already in low-paid jobs that actually helped us get through the pandemic: the retail workers, the aged-care workers and the childcare workers.' To the people on the frontline that were doing the hard work during the pandemic, you're saying, 'It's all okay now; now's the time for a wage cut.' It's not okay. It's not okay for those Australian workers. We say to those Australian workers that, when it comes to cutting wages, we're on the side of the workers, while the government can stay on the side of the big businesses and the people that want to cut workers' wages. That's where they've always been. Every time they're in government they take every opportunity to try and sneak in a wage cut to workers. Every opportunity, they try and find a way: 'Here we are—why waste a pandemic? Let's see if we can get workers' wages again.' They keep doing it. Every time they're in government they find an excuse to do it.

An opposition member: It's in their DNA.

It's absolutely in their DNA; it always has been in their DNA.

When it comes to my home state, we know that JobKeeper ending is going to have a big impact. We know that industries in my home state are still struggling. They're not getting the international visitors and they're not going to for some time. We know there are fewer interstate visitors than there could be because of people's uncertainty about travel in Australia today. Indeed, just this week the tourism sector said that the parts of the tourism sector most reliant on international travel, such as tour companies, conference and convention centres, and those geared towards business travel are continuing to struggle. They are concerned about JobKeeper ending in March, and so they should be. There are thousands of Tasmanians still reliant on JobKeeper today.

David Peach from the Launceston Chamber of Commerce said: 'This is our new normal There's a possibility, a case, for selective and tested continuation of JobKeeper for some industries.' Perhaps the government should listen. Perhaps there is a need for some assistance to go to some of those industries that are still struggling. They are struggling in my home state of Tasmania and they are struggling in other parts of the country, particularly in the regions. The minister comes in here and says, 'The biggest issue in regional Australia is workers—we can't get enough of them.' Perhaps the government should have done something about the Seasonal Worker Program and stopped the fruit from rotting on the farms in Australia today. To date, $42 million of fruit and produce is rotting on farms because they didn't do their job. They knew for a year. When this pandemic started, they knew that this would be an issue. They are in charge of quarantine; they are in charge of the Seasonal Worker Program. What bit of the equation doesn't add up? Their lack of action—that is the only thing that has stopped the Seasonal Worker Program and got fruit and produce rotting on people's farms today. It is because of them.

Then we get to JobSeeker—the thing that is supporting low-income and vulnerable Australians. We had the RBA say yesterday that it needs to be lifted because it's a matter of fairness. What we saw during the pandemic, after we put a lot of pressure on the government, was some support for those people on JobSeeker—some initial support and some substantive support on top of that payment. That's slowly being taken away, and that will finish at the end of March too. The government have been very clear that they have no intention of extending this. We have heard from people about how it's going to impact. Everybody in Australia today—everybody except the government—says that that payment needs to be increased from its base level. It's going to impact in communities like mine in Tasmania and it's going to impact the industries that we were just talking about that are still reliant on JobKeeper. The thing about people on JobSeeker is that they spend every single cent they get, because they have no choice. They have to spend it just to survive. They cannot survive without the additional support that the current payment is providing to them. We've had even the member for Bass and the member for Braddon agree with us. The member for Bass has been out there and she's actually said that the JobSeeker payment is too low and needs to increase. (Time expired)

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