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

I will make a few comments. The fact that the government has refused to accept the amendments and is asking the Senate to not insist on them without an explanation really begs the question: why is the government opposed to amendments that stop employers from being able to sack existing workers? I think that is the question that the government needs to answer here. It is very instructive, and I guess we shouldn't be surprised by this, because the government never works collaboratively with the chambers. When it's convenient the government works collaboratively with the Senate, but not this time. The Senate has expressed its view in these amendments, the amendments were returned to the House and the government has said no. There was no engagement, no explanation, no justification for why relatively minor but important amendments could not be agreed to.

We have a lot of issues with the JobMaker hiring credit scheme. I think JobMaker was announced in June, when the employment department knew nothing about it. JobMaker existed for about 4½ months before any detail was released. Some detail was provided in the budget, and at that time the government claimed that the hiring credit scheme would create 450,000 jobs. In estimates we found out that the Treasury view is that only about 10 per cent, or 45,000, of those jobs will be created. We have concerns about this scheme. We are in a deep recession. We have nearly a million unemployed people. We will have 160,000 extra people in the unemployment queues by Christmas, and the queues are already long. We have seven jobseekers for every job ad.

This hiring credit scheme may do some good for young workers, and that is why we have supported the scheme, albeit with concerns. Those concerns go to issues like job security, the fact that the scheme is pretty modest and the fact that government has no answer for what it will do for unemployed workers over the age of 35. The Restart scheme has been a failure in terms of the government's own targets. Despite having concerns about the scheme, in the same spirit of bipartisanship with which we have engaged in tackling the pandemic, we have been prepared to work with the government and support proposals, even if they weren't perfect. We worked with the government on JobKeeper. We called for a wage subsidy scheme weeks before the government finally agreed to one. When the scheme was introduced, it excluded a lot of workers and now the government is reducing the payment way too soon, in our view.

We will support the JobMaker hiring credit scheme, but we think that protections should be put in place to protect existing workers against rogue employers. Frankly, it's been months since the JobMaker scheme was announced. The government has had enough time to put in place sensible legislation, but it hasn't been able to do so. We have half-baked legislation, with rules being written on the side but not released until quite late. We are prepared to work with the government, and that's why these amendments exist. The amendments specifically offer some protections for existing workers, so that rogue employers cannot churn through employees. Rogue employers will be prevented from sacking existing workers and bringing on other workers. We think these amendments offer the necessary protections that should be in the legislation.

There is also an amendment concerning transparency, so that this government, which we know likes a fair bit of secrecy and refuses to provide information, can report on how this scheme is going. Those are the reasons that we believe these amendments should be supported. We will be insisting on the amendments. We wish the government would work more collaboratively when the Senate expresses its views on things like this, instead of making a flat rejection without any explanation. These amendments are about protecting working people. We want people to keep their jobs and we want the government to create new jobs, but we don't want a scheme with loopholes and room for rogue employers to manoeuvre to force existing employees out of work just so these employers can access the scheme. It's up to the government to explain why it finds these amendments offensive. If the government finds these amendments offensive, it obviously has no problem with the lack of job security in this country and the ability of some employers who are not eligible for this scheme to lay off people and bring on others. That is our major concern and it remains our major concern. We wish the government shared this concern.