Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr President. Let me just, firstly, utterly reject the offensive suggestion that any partisan or electoral considerations are involved in any of this. That is just objectionable. It's very disappointing that you would choose to lower the tone of the national conversation in this context to that extent. You've raised some legitimate issues of inquiry, and you've let yourself down, quite frankly, by adding that snarky little bit at the end. You should reflect on that.

We are providing JobKeeper support to six million Australians. We will be providing jobseeker support to well over one million Australians. More than half the Australian working population will be on some form of government payment to support them through this crisis. And, yes, we did use the long-term casual worker definition under the Fair Work Act. The whole objective is to keep workers connected to the businesses that they have been in employment relationships with, and the definition of an employment relationship for casual workers is that they have worked for that business for at least 12 months. But it's not as if casual workers who have worked for that business for less time can't get assistance.