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

Labor will be supporting this amendment. We think there are good arguments to be put in place around increasing transparency for entities that are receiving payments from the Commonwealth. I was waiting to hear the Leader of the Government in the Senate's arguments opposing this amendment, but other than his giving a historical rundown on JobKeeper and the reasons we had it it wasn't clear to me why the government was prepared to oppose it. Considering the length of the pandemic, the fact that it has been ongoing and the fact that we have had such enormous amounts of money going out the door, it wasn't clear why there is an argument against being transparent around where those payments are going. There was a criticism about it covering only businesses or firms where the annual turnover is more than $10 million, but I didn't understand whether that was an argument that it should cover the field. It doesn't seem to me that there is a strong argument against this.

Labor agree that JobKeeper was important. That's why we suggested a wage subsidy program back in the day. Remember that the government was opposed to a wage subsidy program and actually said it was dangerous. We were arguing for it. We saw the merits. We argued for it because of what it achieved—700,000 jobs saved. The successful rollout of a wage subsidy scheme is something that we were always supportive of, as well as the very significant suppression of the virus, which contributed to our economic recovery. I don't think there are any arguments around that at all.

We did have concerns about the lack of transparency once we got through the crisis stage. We did think there was merit behind reporting, and New Zealand has shown how that is done. We were also concerned—and I think we raised it at the time—about how some people who were earning considerably less than they got on the JobKeeper program received that money as well. We think there were elements of the program that could have been better managed by the government to make sure that every dollar spent in this crisis was targeted to where it was needed the most.

Now, with the opportunity we've had, with some of the work the PBO and others have done, and as we enter reporting season for firms, we can see that billions of dollars went to large companies that did very well through the pandemic. There were massive executive bonuses and returns to shareholders, and taxpayers were footing the bill for that. I think people who have done it tough through this pandemic look at that and think that it does not sound fair at all. I congratulate those firms that have returned JobKeeper money. They understand that the reason behind the JobKeeper program was not for firms to increase their profits but to keep people connected to jobs. That was the main reason behind it. So where firms have been in the position to repay it and have done so, I say, 'Good on them.' We just wish there were a few more of them who would follow that lead. Sometimes you change behaviour by shining a light on things. That's where transparency like this is needed and is probably expected by the Australian community.

We support this. I don't think the government has a very strong argument against it. I don't want to hold up this bill passing. My understanding was the government wanted this bill dealt with this week. We were ready to deal with it last night so that, if this amendment passed, it could go to the House. We want to make sure that we are not slowing this bill down, and we absolutely have not been doing that. We were trying to work with the government last night to make sure this bill was passed. With our colleagues in the Greens we amended our speeches and made sure we were in a position to deal with this bill. I don't want to delay it any further. I think it is important that this passes at the earliest opportunity, but this is an important amendment and we're happy to support it.