Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday, the Prime Minister said: 'The challenge of JobKeeper is that businesses will form views about those employees who they will be able to keep on longer term and those who they will not.' Why won't the Prime Minister just be honest and tell the Australian people how many jobs he will end in September?

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

JobKeeper is supporting more than three million workers. Across gymnasiums, across the not-for-profit sector—

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer will just pause for a second. The level of interjections is too high. I'm giving fair warning to everybody. The Treasurer can just mute for a second. I'll have no hesitation in lowering the volume through the use of standing order 94(a). I'm just letting everyone know that. the Treasurer has the call.

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

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The JobKeeper program, the largest such support program in Australia's history, at around $70 billion, supporting more than three million workers, is helping to maintain that formal connection between employers and employees. It's part of a suite of measures that the government has deployed—some $260 billion, or 13.3 per cent of GDP. The states have put in around $36 billion. We have contributed, in terms of economic support, some $260 billion. We have said that, when it comes to the future of the JobKeeper program, we will undertake a review; the Treasury is currently conducting that.

I am asked about jobs. I point the member for Rankin to the ABS weekly and payroll and jobs data which was out today, which showed that the total of payroll jobs increased by one per cent in May. Payroll jobs worked by females increased by 1.4 per cent in May, compared to 0.4 per cent for males. When it talked about younger workers—who, like female workers, have been really badly hit by this COVID crisis—it made the point that payroll jobs in the final week of May increased by two per cent for those aged under 20, compared to 0.4 per cent for all jobs. That's a reflection of the fact that some of those sectors where young people and women are more prominent—and I'm talking about the hospitality sector and the retail sector—are starting to open up. As a result of the success that we have had as a nation in flattening the curve, people are starting to get back to work and it's the coalition who can be trusted to keep people in jobs and to ensure that this transition, helping the economy get back on its feet, will occur.