Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

As we extend additional and temporary supports, we also need to make sure that we strike the right balance between providing elevated levels of support to people but also providing incentives for people to re-engage with the workforce. That's why, in September, we temporarily increased the income-free area of the JobSeeker payment and youth allowance other payment to allow people to earn up to $300 per fortnight. That means that recipients can earn that $300 a fortnight without losing a cent of their payment.

We're extending this measure for another three months from 1 January because we want to make sure that people have the confidence to go back and test themselves—just to put their toe in the water in the job market, even if it is only for a day a week. We know, through our priority investment approach, that people who report earnings, even if they're only a small amount of earnings, are twice as likely to come off payments than those people who do not report earnings. This is absolutely essential as we help people to re-engage with the workforce as our economy reopens and people can go back to work.