Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Why didn't the government put rules in place to require that JobKeeper payments to profitable companies with rising revenue be returned to the taxpayer? The government makes welfare recipients and parents who receive the childcare subsidy return excess payments. Why weren't the same rules put in place for profitable companies with rising revenue?

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

When we announced JobKeeper, at one of the most difficult times this country has seen for decades, the country was looking into the economic abyss like so many countries around the world. People didn't know whether they would be able to go to work the next day or, indeed, whether they would ever see work again. The very day we announced it, the number of people who it was intended would be given notice that they would not be coming back to work—I've heard the stories from all around the country. When we announced it, it had many purposes. Of course, it was to provide income support that was necessary on a scale that Australia has never had to engage in before and to effectively marshal the private sector payrolls of this country to deliver a level of social security income support we had never seen before. It was a great partnership between the government, private sector employees and, indeed, Australia's financial institutions and the banks to enable that level of economic support, to provide an injection of confidence that was so desperately needed. And we made a deal with the employers of this country. We said, 'We are going to provide this support for companies going into this situation and it will be there for six months.' That's what we put in this place. We made that promise and Labor voted for it. We said we were going to stand by this economy and those businesses, and we made that legal. We did that together.

What I hear from those opposite now is they want to change the rules afterwards. They want to change the goalposts. They want to shift the mark. They want to have it each way. They want to support JobKeeper and they want to oppose JobKeeper. This is a constant theme of the Leader of the Labor Party. We made that commitment—

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

The Prime Minister will resume his seat. The Manager of Opposition Business, on a point of order?

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On direct relevance. The question does not go to the whole of the JobKeeper program. The question goes simply to those employers, those companies, that ended up with rising revenue and turned a profit.

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

I understand that. I'm going to hear from the Leader of the House; I'm ready to rule, but I don't want to keep cutting the Leader of the House off!

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

At some stage I probably should put a question to you about this continual conduct which you have commented on—you have, I think, chastised both the Leader of the Opposition and the Manager of Opposition Business on a number of occasions—because it is an abuse of the standing orders. They repeat getting up and making a statement which goes beyond—

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

The Leader of the House will resume his seat. I will rule on whether points of order are frivolous or not. I've heard from the Manager of Opposition Business. The question was very specific, but the way it was framed was, 'Why didn't the government take certain action?' I think the Prime Minister's been very relevant up until now. I have to say that the answer has nothing to do with his observations about the Leader of the Opposition, because he didn't ask the question. But explaining how the program evolved and how it passed through the parliament is being relevant to the question, even if he's not answering in the way you'd prefer.

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

The question put by the Labor member betrays what we have seen from the Labor Party in this place. What was essential at that time was that what was committed to was followed through. That is what gave the Australian business community the confidence to keep people on the payroll, to then put a million people back into work and to ensure that, under the national accounts, as we have just seen, Australia's economy was bigger at the end of June than it was before we went into the pandemic. What we have seen, in the questions put by the Labor Party, is they will happily change the rules on business; they will happily flip them. They cannot be trusted on anything they say when it comes to the economy. (Time expired)