Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the MYEFO was released in December last year, few if any among us could have predicted the economic, environmental and health impacts of 2020. Bushfires, drought, COVID-19 and the recession have all contributed to the $213 billion budget deficit announced last night, a figure so large that it seems beyond comprehension. But I do not want to focus on the billions; I want to focus on the approximately 13,000 small businesses in my electorate. Hospitality, tourism, agriculture and retail all feature prominently in my electorate and all have taken a hit because of the events of this year. But I have reason to hope.

Last week I spent time at Melba's chocolate factory in Woodside, an area impacted by the Adelaide Hills bushfires. In fact, the fire went right up to the back of the factory. I spoke with Tom, the owner. He explained to me how his business has taken advantage of the instant asset write-off scheme to purchase new equipment, and they were able to retain valued and skilled staff members through the JobKeeper program. My statements should not be viewed as unequivocal support for the JobKeeper program. I appreciate the scheme was and still is not without its flaws, but I acknowledge that JobKeeper has helped and is still helping many small businesses and their employees to see their way through the uncertainty of the stages of this pandemic.

It is my hope that the JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme will in turn incentivise those businesses to take on new staff. The credit scheme will give $200 a week to employers who hire JobSeeker recipients aged 16 to 30 and $100 a week for any worker aged 30 to 35, provided they can offer 20 hours of work each week. This is the kind of youth unemployment program that our country needs. Many parts of Australia have stubbornly high youth unemployment, and that's pre COVID. I would say to government, though, that a similar credit scheme for older Australians, aged over 50, who are struggling to find employment would be equally welcome.

While I support the continuation of JobKeeper and the introduction of the JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme, I believe the government has missed an opportunity to harness one of my electorate's most valued resources, and that is volunteering. Volunteering Australia estimates that the annual contribution of volunteering to our national economic and social wellbeing is $290 billion, and that is a conservative estimate and a figure that was determined many years ago. I was therefore disappointed by the lack of funding. Ten million dollars is what Volunteering Australia was seeking in order to develop a national youth volunteering initiative. We need to get young people out volunteering. Across my community, at any event where there's volunteering, it's predominantly older people. At a time when paid jobs are scarce, this initiative could mitigate poor mental health outcomes for young unemployed people and support pathways to paid employment while also supporting their own communities.

Those who have already left the workforce or who are unable to participate by reason of disability or impairment are not immune from the combined impacts of the pandemic and the recession, and I welcome the two cash payments of $250, coming before Christmas and then in March next year. The payments will also go to anyone who is receiving the family tax benefit. This is really welcome for families.

Throughout 2020, we have seen a paired economic and health response, and I'm pleased to see a one-year extension for the public adult dental health program, but I still encourage government to consider dental vouchers for older pensioners. We have this for people who receive the family tax benefit, people who have young children. I think we need to do this for our older citizens as well. I'm pleased to see the expansion of Medicare to cover psychology visits, up from 10 sessions to 20 sessions, and the continuation of teleservices as well as the allocation of 23,000 home-care packages over four years. We all know this is welcome, but we also know that there's a waiting list of over 100,000 older Australians who are needing assistance.

It has been a very difficult time, I think, in every electorate. In my electorate, in the last year, we've had fires and we've had COVID, and in many parts of my electorate we are also drought-declared. The budget will hopefully be a chance for our nation to rebuild again. We have much work to do, collectively, in this place and outside in our community, and I look forward to the days ahead. Thank you.

Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to ensure that the Treasurer and this parliament are aware of the views of the community that I represent on last night's federal budget, because it's my job to ensure that their voices are heard here in our national parliament. Marilyn said, 'The Morrison LNP government left the people that need the help the most behind.' Peter said, 'The real losers are the people over 35 in casual jobs who will be sacked or lose a lot of hours so bosses can get on the "employ young workers" gravy train.' Damo pointed out, 'It sounds like they're playing the old trickle-down economics card—tax cuts that benefit the rich and big business first. We all know how that ends.' On child care, Maureen was pulling no punches when she said: 'They don't want women with children to work. They're stuck in the 1950s, where a woman's place was in the home and the husband earned the money and decided how it was spent.' There was no beating around the bush from Greg, either, when he said, 'The LNP show utter contempt for the seniors, the disabled, the unemployed and low-paid workers.' And Dave, with a poetic nod to the Prime Minister's favourite phrase, said, 'How good is a tax cut if you don't have a job?'

The federal budget handed down last night has no bang for buck. It will rack up a trillion dollars of debt, and still that won't do enough to create enough jobs. It fails to build for the future and leaves too many Australians behind. The government tries to claim that its budget is a plan for jobs. Well, under its plan for jobs, it's going to produce an additional 160,000 new unemployed people before Christmas. How on earth is that a plan for jobs? That is indeed a plan for more no-jobs. So, whilst a million unemployed people over the age of 35 have been deliberately excluded from the hiring subsidies that are contained in the government's budget and while the average worker will receive a $50 per fortnight tax cut, millions on JobKeeper have seen their payment cut by at least $300 a fortnight.

In Burt alone, around 4,000 businesses and the 15,000 people that they employ rely on JobKeeper. But the government's recent JobKeeper changes could see many thousands of those workers thrust into the unemployment queues. Every local business in Burt that I speak to is worried not only about how the changes to JobKeeper might affect them and their employees but how decreases in JobSeeker and JobKeeper will affect their communities and their customers. You don't have to be a finance minister who's put together seven federal budgets to work out that less money trickling into people's pockets means less money flowing into the local economy. You would think that this is the issue that the government should have been addressing with this budget.

Across the country, we're in a deep and very damaging recession. While we're lucky in WA to be seeing positive results on the coronavirus front, many are still struggling to keep food on the table and look after their families. This budget does little to repair that damage. Our south-eastern suburbs have missed out on any announced federal funding for infrastructure projects, meaning that we will get nothing to support local job opportunities and our local economy.

The problems don't stop there. There is little support for the caring economy—child care, aged care—or indeed to support the unemployed aged over 35 in getting into the workforce, many of whom have children in child care and have no choice but to stay at home to care for their loved ones. What a perverse way to drive down the participation rate. The price of child care in our community is already well above the national average, with fees rising about six per cent in the last year. Families who have taken a pay cut over the past few months could be forced to give up child care altogether, and that would force them out of the workforce. Women are being left out and left behind by the federal government during this economic downturn, and this budget is doing nothing to address the significant job losses in industries dominated by women. Last night in the budget we saw nothing new on fixing the gender pay gap, super balances, domestic and family violence services or social housing. One trillion dollars of debt, a track record of no delivery and no plan for the future—that is the legacy of this Treasurer's COVID-19 budget. As Greg so eloquently put it, 'A typical, no-idea, no-plan Liberal budget.'