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. Adam from Lethbridge Park is a 40-year-old Dnata worker who was deliberately excluded from JobKeeper. He was put on minimal hours this year and is looking for a new job. Because he is 35, Adam is locked out of the hiring credit. Adam asks: if there are only incentive programs for employing up-to-35s and over-50s, where does that leave me? Why is the Prime Minister leaving Australians like Adam behind?

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

A range of measures, including cashflow allowances, were provided to businesses right across the board to support them during this difficult period, which has enabled them to not only keep employees in place but to put more on. In this year's budget, we have introduced the loss carry-back measure, which helps all workers, right across businesses that have been most affected. They can carry back losses from this year to previous years where they have paid tax, which will enable those businesses to put people on and to grow our economy.

Around half of the jobs that had been lost through this terrible COVID-19 recession have already come back into the economy. In addition to that, consumer confidence has now reached a seven-year high, rebounding back from the terrible lows that we saw as we moved through the worst parts of the COVID-19 recession. That confidence is necessary. For someone who lost a job at the company referred to or at any other place, all of those companies, all of those workers, will be supported by an economy that is growing again in confidence, an economy that is being supported by the strong economic policies that are seeing businesses open again and seeing employees coming back into those businesses.

This Friday the national cabinet will meet again and we will keep our focus on opening up Australia by the end of this year. I can tell you, one of the things that will help the aviation industry more than anything else is to see those domestic borders come down in this country where it is safe to do so, so that we can safely open again and we can remain open. That will do more for tourism and hospitality jobs, for aviation jobs all around this country than almost any other thing I can imagine, because of the extensive level of supports that this government has put into the economy. What we're hearing from the Labor Party today is the classic each-way bet. Those opposite say they support the measures we have put in place in the pandemic, but they do not. They're talking out of both sides of their mouth.

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

The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order?

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

I have concluded my answer, Mr Speaker.