Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Can the Treasurer explain why a 20-year-old working one shift per week at a clothes store and living at home receives the full $1,500 JobKeeper wage subsidy but arts and entertainment workers who work gig to gig and event to event are excluded?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reality is we've set out a wage subsidy program at $1,500, a flat rate, so that if you earned more you wouldn't get a greater wage subsidy from the government. That was the program that we set out. In terms of who it covers it was very clear. It would cover full-time workers; it would cover part-time workers; it would cover long-term casuals, based on the established understanding in the Fair Work Act; it would cover sole traders and the not-for-profit sector.

When it comes to the arts sector we've announced a number of particular initiatives to support that sector at this difficult time. But I would like the House to acknowledge some six million workers are now covered by the JobKeeper payments, based on the 860,000 businesses that have enrolled. If you add that to the 1.6 million Australians who are covered by the jobseeker payment that's more than half the workforce—six million, plus 1.6 million is 7.6 million—when you consider the Australian labour force today is 13.2 million.