Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister update the House on how the Morrison government is driving Australia's economic and health recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic?

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

I thank the member for Goldstein for his question. I was very pleased to join the member for Goldstein when we connected with thousands of residents in his electorate, as we sent our support to those in Melbourne, in particular in his community, not just to provide them with the answers to their questions as they raised them in our town hall telephone meeting but also to give them encouragement and to thank them for the sacrifices they are making each and every day.

We welcome the fall in the number of new cases each day in Victoria—116 today and, sadly, an additional 15 deaths, and again we send our sympathies and condolences to the families who have lost loved ones during this crisis, particularly in the last 24 hours. We are turning the corner in Victoria and, as a Commonwealth government, we are very pleased to continue to support all the efforts of the Victorian government, to assist them as they get control of what has been a very significant outbreak, as the second Victorian wave that has impacted Australia and had such a devastating effect not just in Victoria but as ripple effects across the economy, along with the other restrictions and things that have been put in place in other parts of the country that have affected so many parts of our great nation.

There has been unprecedented support to our economy, as I noted in my earlier remarks, to ensure that we are there to support and aid Australians in what have been their most difficult hours during this crisis. There has been over $100 billion in support through JobKeeper alone, but also in responding with the doubling, effectively, of the JobSeeker payment through the COVID supplement, which has extended far and wide across the country, and the herculean task done by the wonderful officers at Services Australia, which at one time even included members of the Department of Parliamentary Services itself, answering phone calls in committee halls in this very building, to ensure that Australians could get access to the payments they needed to help them get through. It was an extraordinary effort from our Public Service to ensure that these incredible backlogs and numbers of those seeking assistance were able to be addressed in a matter of months, when normally that same number of applications wouldn't be seen in several years.

There is also the JobMaker plan, which I set out to the nation when I spoke at the National Press Club many months ago. A keen focus of that plan is to ensure that we get young people into work, who have been most affected by this crisis, and women, who have also been most dramatically affected economically by this crisis. The good news, as the Treasurer has already highlighted today, is that those most impacted by job losses through COVID-19 are also those who are regaining their jobs now, as we continue to reopen our economy—and it is important that we do reopen our economy and that we get the balance right between the health needs and the economic needs, and we continue to stress those issues as the national cabinet meets. (Time expired)