Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is clear that too many Australians are currently being left behind by the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis it has caused. Throughout the crisis, Labor has worked responsibly and constructively with the government, but, at the same time, we've not been afraid to call them out where they've fallen short. Our priority has always been to protect jobs and help workers, their families and the businesses that employ them through this crisis. Our priority has been to look out for vulnerable Australians and ensure that they are supported properly. We have fought for those priorities here in the parliament. The Greens know this and the Greens have seen this.

This motion and the Greens' bill it refers to will not make sure that workers get the extra support they need, and the Greens know that, too, because we all know that the Senate cannot introduce bills for the government appropriation of funding. We also know that the government already have the power to extend support to those missing out. It was Labor's work that gave them that authority, and we have been calling loudly for them to use it.

As we move into our first recession for 29 years, it's clear right now that too many Australians are missing out on the support they need during this recovery. Throughout the pandemic and the economic crisis, the government have consistently told us how we're all in this together, how their approach to support the community was equal and how it didn't favour some over others. They more recently told us that they would not leave anyone behind. These are the words of the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, 'We will not leave the vulnerable behind.' He is a Prime Minister that says one thing and then does another. One day we're all in this together and then, the next, millions of workers are excluded from JobKeeper. One day it's guaranteed that JobKeeper will be there to support workers until September and, the next, they are ripping JobKeeper away from 120,000 early childhood educators.

The worst thing about these moves is that they almost always overwhelmingly impact the poorest Australians and the most vulnerable Australians. Either the government are not aware of the impacts of their policy decisions or they don't care. I'm not sure which is worse: an incompetent government or a government that lack compassion? Perhaps it's both. While a lot of their decisions scream a lack of care for our lowest paid workers and our most vulnerable Australians, their implementation of those decisions just scream incompetence.

JobKeeper is a case in point. It's an excellent idea. It's a scheme that the Labor Party, the union movement and workers had to fight for, and it's a scheme which, to its credit, has helped millions of Australians stay in their jobs. But JobKeeper could have and should have helped millions more. The government's execution of JobKeeper was bad. This is a good program with poor implementation, exemplified by the largest budgeting blunder in Australia's history—$60 billion of budget blundering. That $60 billion could have been used to roll out JobKeeper to the millions of workers that they excluded from the scheme, workers who they excluded because at the time they said they just had to draw the line somewhere. Well, they found an extra $60 billion and what did they do? Include more workers? No. They did the opposite and they excluded even more people than were already excluded from the program. I'm referring to the 120,000 early childhood educators who they've just excluded from JobKeeper in coming weeks. Instead of targeting the scheme at those who really need it, they excluded more people. They could have targeted it at casuals who are missing out, freelancers, temporary migrants, NDIS workers, university staff, arts and performance workers, local government employees, the many charity workers who are missing out, international students and so many more.

For months, Labor has been calling on the government to take action and, for months, Labor has been calling on the government to extend the wage subsidy to include workers that they have so heartlessly excluded. We know that the impacts these exclusions will have on people, and their employers as well, will be absolutely devastating. These impacts are happening right now, in real time, to real people. You only have to look at the university sector to see what these exclusions mean for jobs. We know that 21,000 jobs are at risk if the government do not step in to support universities during this difficult period—21,000 livelihoods that Australian families rely on and yet the government seem to barely even acknowledge that this is the risk.

Now we're seeing the results of their inaction, because we're watching universities cut back on courses and degrees, close campuses and shed jobs. There are 400 university jobs that are about to be lost in Geelong in my home state of Victoria and the government is letting this happen, right in the middle of our first recession in almost 30 years. These are exactly the jobs that these regional communities need. Regional Australia needs these university jobs which often help underpin their local economies. We're talking about a range of employees in these universities—tutors, academics, catering staff, cleaners, security officers, library staff, administration staff, ground staff and many more. These are all people who have to support themselves and people who have families to support. They have bills to pay and food to put on the table.

Families will be wondering not why the government didn't act to save their jobs but why the government actively went out of their way to exclude these workers. What is it that the government has against particular groups of Australian workers? What is it that the government has against university sector staff? The irony is that it's universities and their medical researchers, health researchers and other staff, who right now are helping to see us through this health crisis and plan a way out of it for the future.

You only have to look at the hospitality sector or the arts and entertainment sectors to see businesses that are shutting every day and thousands upon thousands of workers losing their jobs. Some of these jobs and businesses could have been saved if the government did not actively exclude these workers, these sectors, these businesses, from the JobKeeper program. But they did exclude them—they excluded so many people, including over one million casuals. I don't know if those on the government benches realise, but the decision to exclude so many people has actual real-life consequences. This is not about numbers and statistics; it's about people, their families and their lives.

Over the past few months, I've been talking to workers who've been impacted by coronavirus and those that have been excluded from JobKeeper—workers like Jason. Jason is a Kiwi living here in Australia. He's made his life here; he's been here for years. But since the coronavirus crisis started, many aspects of the life that he's tried to build here have fallen apart. His employers won't claim JobKeeper for their workers, because of their concerns around cash flow, and Jason can't get jobseeker because of his New Zealand citizenship. As a result, many people like Jason who've come to Australia to make a life are being forced into dire situations, with often their only option being to raid their retirement savings by accessing their superannuation. Jason is a case in point. He's had to pull $1500 from his super and he's really worried that he'll have to access more. If he's forced to access the limit of $10,000, Jason could be up to $90,000 worse off when he retires. How is that fair?

What about Darcy? Darcy has been mentioned in this chamber before. He's been working in hospitality for over 15 years, making him an absolute hospo veteran. He has had to move back in with his parents at the age of 30, which certainly wasn't part of his plan but it was his only option. Despite those 15 years, he has been a casual at his most recent employer for less than 12 months. He's never been unemployed in his adult life but, because of the transient nature of hospitality work, he'd only been technically employed for just a few months by his current boss, which made him ineligible for the JobKeeper scheme under the government's guidelines. That meant that he could no longer pay his bills, pay his rent and be independent. At the age of 30, he's had to move back in with his parents to survive. Darcy said that missing out on JobKeeper was, in his own words, 'gut-wrenching'. And Darcy considers himself to be one of the lucky ones. He knows that some of his colleagues and friends who were employed in the hospitality sector are unable to stay with family or friends—they don't have those support networks. It's a grim reality and one that this government is allowing to happen by its refusal to include casual workers like Darcy in the JobKeeper program.

Then there's the example of temporary migrant workers who are really in the most dire circumstances of all, because of this government's decision to draw a line to exclude them. Take the case of Giovanni. He's a temporary migrant worker and an international student. He, too, moved here with the hope of building a better life, like so many migrants to this country before him. He has been studying for a Master of Education and working 20 hours a week in hospitality, but because of the COVID-19 shutdown his hours were cut right back and he is struggling to pay the rent. His partner is due to give birth any day now to their first child.

Giovanni has spent years in Australia, contributing, working, studying, paying taxes, pay uni fees and being everything that he can be to be a valued member of our community. He put it well, when he said, 'We're not asking much; we pay tax, you know—we're just asking for a little bit of relief.' But the government's response to Giovanni and others in a similar situation was to say, 'Just go home.' How absolutely outrageous! When we spoke about the government's response to those in his situation, this is a man who actually broke down in tears. Giovanni said that this was one of the most heartbreaking moments in his life, because he'd done everything to be included as a valued member of our community. But this government decided to specifically exclude him from the JobKeeper program.

Giovanni, Darcy and Jason deserve to have a government that supports them in times of crisis and in times of hardship. These exclusions from JobKeeper will have contributed to the fact that there are more people on the jobseeker payment than was predicted at the beginning of this crisis: 200,000 more Australians are currently on jobseeker than predicted. And we can expect this number to grow even more, to 1.7 million by September. But what's the plan for these people who have lost their jobs because of a global pandemic, come September? The government's current plan is, as we all know, to snap back unemployment benefits to the previous Newstart rates—rates which are so low that they trap people in poverty and actually prevent them from doing something that the government talks so much about: finding employment. This is not a great idea in the middle of a recession.

We need to be helping to support people while they find a way to get back to work, and that means making sure people can afford the essentials that they need: training, tools, transport, clothing and being able to keep a car on the road. These are not possible on the old Newstart rates. Too many people are falling through the cracks in the government's support, and it sounds like they are going to let the same thing happen to those on JobKeeper in September. This snapback is going to hurt families, it will hurt businesses and it will hurt the economy, and the government has the power, because of our advocacy, to help support these Australians with the flick of a pen.