Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to questions without notice asked by Senators Wong and Gallagher today relating to COVID-19.

All of us in this chamber would acknowledge that right now Australia and the world face incredible challenges. Coronavirus tragically has led to the deaths of 280,000 people worldwide, including 97 here in Australia, and now, as we appear to be emerging from the worst of the health crisis in Australia, we face a significant economic and unemployment challenge. We've seen hundreds of thousands of Australians lose their jobs, we've seen small businesses destroyed and we've seen particular impacts on certain industries—most of all the hospitality industry, which has seen one in three jobs disappear in such a short period of time. Treasury and the Reserve Bank are predicting that unemployment will remain high for the rest of this year. Deloitte yesterday released a report which said that unemployment won't reach pre-COVID levels until at least 2024, so we're looking at high unemployment, according to Deloitte, for another four years.

This week, as we have returned to parliament, we've heard two very different approaches outlined for how the country should respond to this crisis and how we should approach economic recovery. Yesterday the federal Labor leader, Mr Albanese, gave a speech which outlined Labor's approach to how we should recover. What he was saying was that we shouldn't just go back to the things were; we need to build an economy that works for people, not the other way round. We need to build a stronger, fairer economy with a focus on reducing unemployment and underemployment.

Sadly, we are seeing a very different approach from the government, and we saw that here again today in question time. The approach that this government is taking was described by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer recently as one of snapback. They seem to live in this mythical economic world where everything can just snap back to the way things were. That's assuming, of course, that you think that everything was perfect in the first place. They seem to think that we can snap back overnight to a world in which we still had low productivity, high unemployment, low economic growth, low business investment, wages that were stagnant and high levels of insecure work. That's the kind of world that this government thinks that we can snap back to.

And nowhere is this approach more on display at the moment than with the government's statements around its intentions in relation to the JobKeeper payment. This of course was the wage subsidy which this government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to implement. They were against the calls of Labor, the union movement and businesses. They finally got there, and finally implemented the JobKeeper payment, but the fact that they were opposed to it from day one continues to be on display, with early calls from members of this government to start winding it back. That's what 'snap back' means under this government; it means winding back and cutting off the very payments that this government has finally put in place to try to keep this economy alive and to try to keep people in work.

We've seen over the last few days reports that the government wants to wind back the JobKeeper payment—and that's before unemployment has even peaked. The reports from the Treasury and the Reserve Bank are that we won't hit the maximum rate of unemployment—around 10 per cent—until around June this year. So before we've even seen unemployment peak we've got members of this government who want to start winding back the JobKeeper payment.

In fact, there are many businesses across Australia who are yet to even receive JobKeeper payments to reimburse them for payments they've made to their workers—and before the businesses have even started to receive the JobKeeper payment we've seen members of this government wanting to start winding it back. Today in question time Minister Cormann, the finance minister, was asked whether the government was considering a windback. He told us that the government isn't considering an early end to the JobKeeper payment, but then he went on to confirm that it is actually under review. And it's that second answer which is the most important. This government is already reviewing the JobKeeper payment before it has even been received by some businesses, before unemployment has even peaked. What that shows is that the clock is ticking for the JobKeeper payment and the snapback that this government wants to see in place has begun; a return to low wages, higher than average unemployment and low economic growth has begun. Jason Falinski, the member for Mackellar, today has been reported as saying he thinks we should turn off the JobKeeper payment as soon as possible. He said, 'As soon as schools go back then it should go.' The snapback has begun.

There are many business groups in my home state of Queensland who are saying cutting the JobKeeper payment would be disastrous for the economy. They know that snapback would be disastrous; it's about time the government did too. (Time expired)