Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Ciccone for the question. Let me start by saying that it is expected that the JobMaker hiring credit will support around 450,000 jobs for young people to move them back into employment, at a cost of $4 billion. We know that employers will be able to claim the JobMaker hiring credit for new jobs created over the 12-month period beginning 7 October for up to 12 months for each job. The credit itself is only available for additional jobs. Employers can't reduce their current workforce, by either dismissing employees or reducing their hours, to re-engage new workers performing the same work to receive the hiring credit. All employees have protections under existing industrial relations laws from unfair or unlawful dismissal, including non-genuine redundancies.

The rules exposure draft explanatory material makes clear:

The types of arrangements that would be prevented by the integrity provisions in the Act are varied but would include arrangements where an employer artificially inflates their employee headcount and/or payroll for a JobMaker period (for example, by terminating, or reducing the hours of, an existing older employee—