Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Jobkeeper Payments) Amendment Bill 2020. The Labor Party is supporting this bill, but that's not to say we think that the bill is perfect—it isn't. We have some serious concerns about parts of the legislation, concerns my colleague and very good friend Tony Burke, the shadow minister for industrial relations, outlined in some detail in his speech in the other place.

Let's start at the beginning. It was the Labor Party and the unions that first called on the government to implement a wage subsidy, an idea the government ridiculed until they saw the Centrelink queues, the tragic face of their original and wrong decision to simply consign workers onto welfare. Eventually they saw what everyone else, including business and employer groups, saw: the need for a wage subsidy. So they came up with JobKeeper. It was somewhat flawed and involved the biggest costing bungle in budget history, but was still a much needed lifeline to businesses and millions of people employed by them in this country. They said it would end in September. That was pretty optimistic, as it turns out. Again, Labor, with unions and employer groups, had to tell them that it needed to be extended. Everyone could see that there would be no miraculous snapback, as Prime Minister Morrison so famously boasted. But, again, they said no, and, again, thankfully, they overcame their natural stubbornness and changed their mind.

We are supporting the legislation because we support the extension of JobKeeper. As the shadow Treasurer has often said, the JobKeeper wage subsidy is a very good idea being badly implemented. Too many Australians are left out and left behind—some accidently but, regrettably, many quite deliberately. From day one, we've said that the scheme should be better targeted so that the people who really need it can get it, but we don't waste taxpayers' money. We were very concerned about the government's plan to rip this support out from the economy for all workers and industries at the end of September. It made no sense at all. So we welcome the extension of JobKeeper for a further six months.

However, as I said earlier, despite completely supporting the extension of JobKeeper, Labor has some serious concerns about the bill. That's because the government has seen fit to introduce some extreme elements into the bill. I'm referring to the extension of the emergency industrial relations powers to businesses who no longer qualify for government JobKeeper support. As expected, the bill contains provisions that extend the timing of the JobKeeper enabling stand down direction that are currently set to be repealed on 28 September. These provisions were included in the original JobKeeper legislation, and back in April we were told they were critical to ensuring that the JobKeeper payments could be operationalised and that these powers could only be used for that purpose. Now, in this bill, the government wants us to agree to those same emergency powers being extended to employers who had previously qualified for JobKeeper but were now no longer eligible—the so-called legacy employers. By the very definition, legacy employers are those the government considers to have recovered sufficiently to no longer need government support. And, although they are sufficiently recovered to no longer need government support, they can use the fact that they may still have a 10 per cent decline to cut the hours of their workers by as much as 40 per cent.

The government has not made the case as to why these extraordinary emergency industrial relations powers are necessary at this time. That is why Labor will be moving to ensure that only businesses still eligible for JobKeeper can access these extreme powers. The government claims these powers are modified and have safeguards. One of these supposed safeguards is that the employer cannot reduce a worker's hours by more than 40 per cent. But this so-called safeguard will result in many low-paid workers, including in the retail industry, experiencing a very substantial pay cut.

A 40 per cent reduction in hours for workers on the minimum wage would mean that they would lose $300 a week from their normal wage of currently $750 per week under the JobKeeper rate. There are many workers who are paid just above the minimum wage. In fact, anyone earning less than $32 per hour who has their hours cut by 40 per cent will be worse off than they have been under JobKeeper mark 1. How is this fair? This creates a situation where a worker, at a time when the businesses they work for are doing better, will have their pay cut. The attempt to extend emergency industrial powers to employers who don’t receive JobKeeper is of extreme concern to the Labor Party.

Back in April, when we were passing the original JobKeeper legislation, we were told these flexibilities were critical to operationalise the JobKeeper payments. We were told that these provisions could only be used by JobKeeper eligible businesses. Now we are told it's essential that it be extended to businesses no longer eligible for JobKeeper. We can see what's next: the government testing their future plans for industrial relations. There will be a trial for how their flexibility dream might look and work. The next thing is that the government will move for them to be made a permanent feature of this legislation. The government will claim that it's all in the name of saving jobs, when in fact it is an attack on decent secure jobs of ordinary Australians.

That's why Labor will move its amendments, firstly, to remove the extension of JobKeeper flexibilities to the employers that the government themselves have determined no longer need assistance and for which the government has made no case. Secondly, should that not be agreed to, we will move an amendment that ensures that no employee who has had their hours cut will drop below the JobKeeper rate. We sincerely hope senators support this amendment to protect some of our lowest-paid workers from bearing the cost of a business recovery when the government has wiped its hands of those people.

Australians have worked together to combat the virus but more work must be done by the Morrison government to ensure that our hardest hit Australians are not left out and left behind in this recovery.