Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said yesterday:

… if you're good at your job, you'll get a job.

Paul from West Hoxton in my electorate is in his 60s and was made redundant in December last year. If he doesn't get a job he will have to sell his house. Why does the Prime Minister say people like Paul haven't been able to find jobs because they're not good enough?

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

) ( ): That is not what I said. That is a rather ugly misrepresentation of what I said yesterday. I was asked yesterday about appointments to positions within the government. That's what I was asked about. There are a million people, who, through the course of this COVID-19 recession, have found themselves out of work through no fault of their own. The government has been absolutely clear about that. Not only have we been clear about the fact that this COVID-19 recession, which was caused by a global pandemic—something those opposite fail to appreciate, acknowledge or understand. By contrast, the government understands that the people who have lost their job through this COVID-19 recession have lost their job through no fault of their own. But we've gone beyond that, by putting in place the $101 billion JobKeeper program that has provided a lifeline to three million Australians—and more—and by doubling the JobKeeper payments through the COVID supplement to help Australians get through the worst of this crisis and to cushion the blow.

In this country, when it comes to the response to the COVID-19 recession and the pandemic, the impact has been cushioned more than in almost any other country in the world today. Only a handful of countries—South Korea, Finland, Norway, Australia—and economies like Taiwan can actually speak of the sorts of ways that we've been able to act to cushion the blows to the very constituent that you speak of. That is why the JobTrainer program provides 340,000 places right now. For the Labor party to come in here and take comments that are made and apply them to completely different contexts is a grubby smear and an insult to all of those Australians, and it seeks to misrepresent. The Labor Party needs to learn how to tell the truth.