Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

The government does not support Senator Patrick's amendment. In responding to the amendment, I want to speak a little about the JobKeeper program, and then we'll go to the particular content of the amendment.

What we see is that the JobKeeper program was one of the most successful economic responses to a time of crisis in Australia's history and, right around the world, it was one of the most successful economic responses applied to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Reserve Bank of Australia's research, JobKeeper saved at least 700,000 jobs over the period April to July 2020. The RBA has also said that, from its analysis, JobKeeper was far more cost effective than similar schemes in other countries. Estimates are that JobKeeper had a cost of around $100,000 for each job saved, compared with some $224,000 for similar attempts at such programs in the United States. This was consistent with Treasury's own three-month review, which found that the program was at that stage well targeted, with payments going to businesses that had experienced an average decline in turnover of 37 per cent, as well as a doubling in their job separation rate just before JobKeeper was introduced. In comparison, other businesses had had a four per cent decline in turnover, and businesses that were not claiming JobKeeper had had no change in job separation rate.

The success of the JobKeeper program meant that businesses across Australia performed better than expected. That, along with Australia's success in the suppression of COVID-19, has underpinned Australia's rapid economic recovery. It has also meant that some businesses within the JobKeeper program that were entirely eligible under the rules established at the time of making claims ultimately performed better than expected because the economy reopened faster and grew more strongly and because we saw the recovery come back more strongly. The combination of those factors helped to see our unemployment rate decrease for eight consecutive months and fall to 4.9 per cent in June, prior to the recent challenges of additional lockdowns occurring. Australia was the first economy to see both GDP—the size of our nation's economy—and the level of employment across Australia surpass pre-COVID levels, ahead of other advanced economies. We also saw business, with the strength it had as a result of programs like JobKeeper, able to invest in new machinery and equipment and to grow at its fastest rate since March 2003, increasing by 8½ per cent in the December quarter and 10.3 per cent in the March quarter, to be 7.2 per cent higher over the year.

These measures show the economic dividend that has accrued from good management, including programs like JobKeeper, as well as the particularly targeted saving of individual jobs at the time. It was so successful because JobKeeper provided firms with certainty and confidence at a time of great uncertainty. JobKeeper was put in place quickly, with broad eligibility criteria, and was easy to access, because at that time we were seeing lockdowns occurring across every state and territory. At that time we were seeing public-facing businesses, particularly, right across the country, including some of the retail businesses whose names I hear used quite frequently, being told they had to shut their doors. It is a good thing that they were able to reopen their doors earlier than anticipated. It is a good thing that they were able to grow faster than anticipated. It is a good thing that they have been able not only to maintain the jobs they had but, in some instances, for some of these businesses, to employ more Australians as a result of the economic dividend that flowed from the management through the pandemic.

As a government, we hear the calls that are made now to try to go back and retrospectively change the terms of eligibility for JobKeeper. The government does not believe that we should be retrospectively changing those rules. We adapted—

Senator Patrick interjecting—

Senator Patrick says this doesn't do that. He's right. The amendment itself does not, but the motivations for the amendment are clearly about continually going after certain businesses, trying to demonise them and imply or suggest they did the wrong thing. Businesses who did the wrong thing, who claimed what they were not eligible for under the rules of the program at the time, are subject to all the enforcement provisions of the ATO, but businesses who claimed what they were eligible for at the time weren't doing the wrong thing don't deserve to be targeted, to be demonised or otherwise. The government welcomes and encourages those who choose to make voluntary repayments. That is a welcome and honourable thing undertaken by those businesses. But other Australian businesses who have made profits during the course of the year have been in a position to reinvest, as I said, driving investments in Australia to higher levels; to create more jobs, driving employment in Australia to higher levels; and to pay dividends, often flowing into the superannuation accounts of many Australians. These are all of the things you expect to see in a stronger economy, and it is a good thing that JobKeeper, as structured, helped to achieve a stronger economy.

I note that the Greens in the remarks made and, indeed, Senator Patrick's amendment only seek to target businesses above a certain threshold. We know that just as there would be and are businesses above that threshold who ended up doing better than expected, so too would there be many small Australian businesses, many small traders—sole traders—across Australia and many not-for-profit organisations across Australia. Again, it is a good thing that they all did better than anticipated at the start of JobKeeper.

Today we have new programs in place, new measures that are able to be better targeted, better focused, in the way in which they are applied. We are working with states and territories in the delivery of assistance to businesses that is targeted for the duration of lockdown and focused very clearly on businesses affected during those lockdowns. That's because over time we've been able both to learn about how we as a country can respond to COVID-19 and the changing circumstances, particularly those brought about by the delta variant, and to appreciate and understand how we as a nation can make sure that we provide targeted assistance geographically, locally and to people most affected at the time. Back when JobKeeper was born, that wasn't an option. It was nationwide, it was urgent and it was in the face of great national uncertainty. The rules were written then to deal with the circumstances at the time, and we don't support putting in place measures today that are about furthering some sort of argument that we should go back and retrospectively change the rules or the expectations for businesses.