Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) Share this | Hansard source

Maribyrnong is the ground zero of the live event industry in Australia, and the live event industry in Australia has been terribly hard hit by COVID-19. In my own electorate we have music festivals like Laneway and the Big Day Out. We host the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds, the Moonee Valley Racing Club and the race that stops the nation, the Melbourne Cup. The live events industry is doing it hard under COVID.

Many people have been affected by COVID. Many people have been affected negatively, but none harder than the live events industry. They need government assistance and they need it now. Everyone in Australia wants to return to normal; however, we can't do that until the job is finished, and in live events the government has not finished the job. JobKeeper must stay.

I want to talk, therefore, about a remarkable and concerning report in the last 24 hours from the Save Victorian Events lobby group, who've surveyed hundreds of companies in the live events area—audio, technicians, the rigging, the expo, the exhibition hire, the conference event organisers—and 150 companies turned around the results I'm about to read out within 24 hours. Things are desperate. What it revealed is that, from April to December 2020, the income of live events was down 85 per cent. The forecast between January and June of this year is that income will be down 76 per cent. The forecast from July to December 2021 is that it will be down 67 per cent. Some 95 per cent of these companies are receiving JobKeeper. JobKeeper has been good. It enabled 44 per cent of companies to keep all of their staff on and another 44 per cent of companies to keep some of their staff on, but the survey shows that if JobKeeper ends on 31 March 46 per cent will need to let staff go and 39 per cent of live event companies will, in fact, shut their doors—85 per cent of live event companies will be negatively affected by the end of JobKeeper.

I call upon the government with this dramatic new research from the Victorian live events sector to keep JobKeeper going. The live events industry employs hundreds of thousands of people. It generates tens of billions of dollars a year for Australia. This is an industry too important to be simply thrown on the scrap heap. I say to Mr Morrison on behalf of hundreds of thousands of people working in the industry and millions of Australians who attend live events every year: please, Mr Morrison, do not confuse stubbornness with leadership. There is no disgrace in amending your views as you find that facts present new information. Stubbornness is not leadership. The live events industry is a fundamental part of the Australian economy. We can't get back to normal until the job is finished. JobKeeper needs to be kept going.

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