Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Jobkeeper Payment) Amendment Bill 2020. I move:

At the end of the motion, add: ", but the Senate:

(a) notes that:

  (i) this legislation gives the Treasurer extraordinary powers to set the rate and eligibility arrangements for the Jobkeeper Payment; and

  (ii) millions of workers and struggling businesses continue to be excluded from the Jobkeeper Payment; and

(b) calls on:

  (i) the Treasurer to use his power under this legislation to ensure the Jobkeeper rate is tailored to conditions in the economy, including rising unemployment; and

  (ii) the Government to permanently increase the base rate of Jobseeker payment, to help people keep out of poverty and enable them to get back to work".

This bill extends the end of JobKeeper from its original end date at the end of September through to the end of March next year. The bill also makes some changes in relation to the industrial relations arrangements which are linked to the JobKeeper extension, and I know my colleague Senator Farrell has spoken in his second reading debate speech on those.

Labor welcome this extension to JobKeeper. Unlike the Prime Minister, we never believed in the September snapback, not just in JobKeeper but for the coronavirus supplement. It was always going to be untenable for the September snapback to occur, with over 1.6 million Australians on unemployment benefits and more than 3.5 million Australians receiving JobKeeper. We also know there are another 400,000 Australians predicted to lose their jobs by Christmas. Those numbers alone tell you enough about what would have happened if the September snapback were allowed to happen. This bill simply legislates the extension of the JobKeeper program to the end of March. When it comes to extending JobKeeper until March, Labor fully support that extension. Indeed, we argued for it well before the government announced it as part of their economic and fiscal update in July this year.

What this bill doesn't deal with is the payment rates, including the tapering the government announced as part of their economic and fiscal update. The government intend to reduce JobKeeper rates for full-time employees from $1,500 to $1,200 a fortnight from the end of September and then from $1,200 a fortnight to $1,000 at the start of January. It is solely in the Treasury's power to change those rates at any time. For employees working less than 20 hours a week, the rate will be reduced from $1,500 to $750 and then down to $600 in January. The issues around eligibility for JobKeeper are also in the Treasurer's power to change.

This takes me to two issues with JobKeeper arrangements that Labor continues to have concerns about. On eligibility, despite the government budgeting for over $101 billion to be spent on JobKeeper, it still leaves out millions of workers—casuals, workers at universities and aviation workers such as those at dnata, which this chamber has heard a lot about. They were all left out of the original JobKeeper and will continue to be left out by this latest version of the wage subsidy scheme. Because of this deliberate design feature to lock out large numbers of workers from JobKeeper, the unemployment queues are going to be longer than they could have been. That's because of the choices of this government. When it comes to the payment rate of JobKeeper, we note that the government made the decision to reduce the rate of JobKeeper in two stages based on the economic conditions forecast at that time. But since those rates were announced there has been a further deterioration in the outlook for both the economy and the unemployment rate.

Labor have been arguing that the level of support in the economy needs to be tailored to the economic circumstances of the time. Our position is a sensible one and one which is supported by the RBA and respected private sector economists. We need to get the economic recovery right and we need the interventions from government to be as good as they can be and in the national interest.

What worries us on the Labor side is, whilst we know how much support the government want to remove from the economy, they don't have a plan for jobs for the economy. This legislation offers nothing in mapping out a plan for jobs in the recovery stage. Australia desperately needs a plan for creating good, secure jobs. We need to be protecting the jobs people have now and we need a blueprint for growing new jobs into the future. We need the government to show some urgency for all of those who are about to enter the labour market for the first time and for those who have lost their jobs or their businesses over the last six months. We all know that this government is big on slogans and spin. Snappy titles are easy to announce—JobMaker, JobTrainer, HomeBuilder—but living up to the titles is proving to be more difficult for this government.

When you look at JobMaker, the department of employment—that is, the department of jobs—didn't even know about it until the Prime Minister announced it in his speech. The same department couldn't explain what JobMaker was other than that they weren't responsible for it.

JobTrainer had the usual big announcement followed by—well, we don't know yet. We have to wait to find out what the skills focus will be, because that wasn't known when the announcement was made. The Skills Commission hadn't decided what the skills focus should be but apparently it's coming soon.

The photo opportunity for HomeBuilder was on 4 June, and yet more than two months later the government is just getting the application processes in place. The last time Treasury appeared before the COVID committee, just a couple of weeks ago, there were no successful applicants and there was no money out the door.

Australians need more from this government than slogans and spin. The country needs a comprehensive jobs plan—a real plan, not a slogan—that identifies where the opportunities are and outlines how the government is going to drive that plan. Witness after witness before the COVID committee, from backgrounds as diverse as you could imagine, is crying out for the same thing. They want a government that responds in a timely way. They want a government that takes their feedback seriously. They want support. They want certainty. They want to be valued for the jobs they do and for the businesses they run. They are desperate for the government to drive confidence up across the country, because without confidence there will be no incentive to invest or to grow jobs. In the end, what this is all about is the focus of the economic recovery. It has to be all about jobs.

In terms of instilling confidence, I think there are a range of suggestions for the government to consider. Labor has been talking about the need for a national jobs plan for months, but there are others things that government could be doing: taking responsibility for aged care, not using the royal commission as an excuse to do nothing. The country will be immeasurably better off in so many ways if older Australians are cared for respectfully. Get an energy plan in place to drive investment and create jobs. Seriously look at how you can support women into work by making sure the early childhood sector supports them and doesn't make it harder for them. Support the university sector. Stop telling us how rich and undeserving they all are as thousands of jobs are cut and teachers, researchers and scientists are thrown into early retirement or onto the unemployment payments, many for the first time in their lives. Stop looking at IR through the single lens of flexibility for the employer. How about broadening that to start dealing with the structural unfairness across our labour market faced by employees, the working people in this country who live hand to mouth, shift to shift with little or no entitlements to leave. Let's imagine a better way for those in insecure work.

Stop undermining superannuation—a quick dollar now that can't be replaced. Thirty-three billion dollars have already been approved to leave accounts. Hundreds of thousands of young people have balances of zero and will have to start again to save for their retirement. It's an indictment on this government that early access super—that is, people's private savings—was the single biggest economic stimulus into the recovery from April to August this year.

But this is just the start. Move beyond the media cycle and focus on delivery rather than the announcement, because it is increasingly obvious that the slogan, the spin and the marketing are always ready to go, but, when it comes to the substance, the delivery and the outcomes for people on the ground, the government is missing in action.

We know that the state of the budget is dire. High levels of debt and budget deficits are going to be with us for the next decade, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office. This means that every dollar spent, which needs to be borrowed, needs to be appropriately targeted and prioritised—prioritised to job creation, job security, keeping Australians safe, supporting families and the vulnerable to get through this really difficult economic time.

It is so important to get the response to the pandemic right. It's so important to ensure that we have a proper plan on the other side that will support and grow the economy, because the consequences of not getting it right mean that more people will face unemployment, more families will be in hardship for longer, the time taken to reduce the unemployment rate will be longer and more businesses will hit the wall.

JobKeeper has an important role to play going forward—we acknowledge that. We think the bill could be and should be strengthened to provide protections for working people so that their wages aren't able to fall below the JobKeeper rate. We are hopeful for the Senate's support and, indeed, for the government to consider that as a worthy amendment.

We urge the Treasurer, when setting the rates, to do something that is not in this bill: to consider the economic circumstances of the time. A decision made in July may not be the right decision for Australians or for the economy in September. The parliament has granted the Treasurer these unprecedented powers so the government can do the right thing. Consider the workers that they've excluded from JobKeeper, consider the economic circumstances right now and make sure the unemployment queues are not one job longer than they need to be. Make sure when you withdraw the money from the economy that you don't jeopardise the economic recovery. You've been warned by the Reserve Bank not to pull out support too quickly. We know from the government's own figures that they are expecting 400,000 workers to lose their jobs by Christmas. The last unemployment numbers said that, for the first time in our history, we had more one million unemployed Australians. So, Treasurer, as you get your pen out to set the rates and the eligibility for JobKeeper, think about the Australian families that are depending on you to do the right thing by them.