Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is cutting the coronavirus supplement for nearly 9,500 Australians on JobSeeker in my electorate of Dunkley. Why did the Prime Minister say that we cannot allow the lifeline that has been extended to now hold Australia back? Doesn't he realise that people want to work and that they need this lifeline to continue during the worst recession in nearly a century?

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

I say to the member for Dunkley that we've actually extended JobSeeker, at a cost of $3.2 billion, providing an additional $150 through the supplement out until the end of March. We've done this because we recognise that there are people in need but, at the same time, the Australian economy is recovering from this once-in-a-century economic shock. There are 1.3 million Australians who either lost their jobs or saw their working hours reduced to zero at the start of the crisis; 60 per cent of those are now back in work. Of those jobs that have been created, 60 per cent are for women and 40 per cent are for young people.

We also know that the effective unemployment rate, which got as high as 15 per cent, has now come down to 9.4 per cent. But for Victoria it would be at 7.8 per cent. We also know that the job ads have recovered three-quarters of their fall since the start of this pandemic. We also know that both Treasury and the RBA have updated their labour market forecasts. Originally, they were expecting unemployment to peak at around 10 per cent by the end of this year, and now they're saying around eight per cent. The fact that 446,000 jobs have been created in the past four months shows that the economic recovery is underway.

But when it comes to tapering both JobKeeper and JobSeeker, I'd say to the honourable member: don't just listen to the words of your leader; also listen to the words of the shadow Treasurer, who is yet to ask a question. The shadow Treasurer was asked, on the ABC: 'When Labor talks about wanting to see these programs tapered, how long would that tapering be for?' And then the member for Rankin says: 'The government should be looking at this kind of tapering.' And then the member for Corio, the deputy leader, turned up on Sky and said, 'There needs to be an appropriate tapering of the government's support,' that the tapering of the removal of the government's support should be done at a slow enough pace to enable the private sector to bounce back. And that's what we're suggesting.

Today we've talked about how consumer confidence and business confidence are up and how the jobs are coming back. So those on the other side should stop playing politics and start focusing on the substance of this policy, which is the extension of the JobSeeker payment for another three months, supporting Australian jobs and supporting the Australian economy, at a cost of $3.2 billion.