Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Under this Prime Minister, Australia has entered its first recession in three decades. How many Australians will lose their jobs? And how many businesses will collapse in September when the Prime Minister snaps back their JobKeeper wage subsidies?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member's question is presumptuous, because he makes assumptions about government policy on decisions that have not been made. It is wrong of the member to assert decisions of the government that have not been made. What the government is working to do is to ensure we have the right combination of income support, business support, targeted industry assistance measures, tax reductions and other supports that ensure that as few people as possible in this country lose their jobs. And, for those who do—and there will be more who do, because we are in a recession caused by a global pandemic. Those opposite may wish to overlook that fact and seek to score points over a recession, which is what they're doing in this place today, and that is very disappointing—220,000 more people lose their jobs, and the Labor Party come in and seek to make political points over this. The government is going to continue to provide the economic leadership and policy support to ensure that as few people as possible are impacted on the way, but there is a heavy blow which is coming on this economy and the global economy, in all countries, developed, not developed and developing. But what we are doing as a country is outperforming all of those countries, pretty much, and certainly the developed countries of the world, as we've sought to respond to this crisis. Now, we will continue to provide that judgement and that support, and that strong economic leadership.

Ms Swanson interjecting—

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

The member for Paterson is warned.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is the same economic leadership that ensured that, prior to this COVID-19 crisis, we had balanced the budget, and over 1.5 million jobs were created, 58 per cent of those being for women. That was the economic leadership that we'd provided. We have done it before, and the Australian people know they can trust us to do it again.