Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Bragg for his question. Small and family businesses are indeed the backbone of the Australian economy, and the Morrison government has put in place a significant range of support measures to help them through the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we have an investment of $320 billion across the forward estimates, representing 16.4 per cent of annual GDP. As the Minister for Finance has said today, the support is temporary, measured and scalable.

The centrepiece of this historic support package is, of course, our $130 billion JobKeeper payment. In the absence of the Morrison government's JobKeeper payment, Treasury estimates that unemployment would have been at least five percentage points higher and would have peaked at around 15 per cent in the September quarter. The ATO has now received around 835,000 enrolments from entities that employ over 5.5 million Australians. Money began flowing back to these businesses last week. As a government, we are confident that the JobKeeper payment and the ability to maintain that connection between employers and employees will enable those businesses to return with their teams as soon as they are able to.

In addition to the $130 billion JobKeeper payment, we are also providing much-needed cash flow support to small and medium businesses, with boosts of between $20,000 and up to $100,000 to eligible businesses, delivered through credits in the business activity statement system. The measure has gone a long way to improve confidence among our small and medium businesses. Small and medium businesses are the backbone of the Australian economy, and we will continue to support them.