Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Labor and the Greens for their support. I understand One Nation will also be supporting this amendment. I have to take the Minister for Finance to task on some of the things that he said. This is important because you cannot rewrite history, Senator Birmingham. We need to go back to what this program was about. I'm going to read from the ATO website, which says:

The JobKeeper Payment scheme was a subsidy for businesses significantly affected by coronavirus (COVID-19).

The JobKeeper payment supported businesses significantly affected by coronavirus. It's the first principle of this bill. So don't you come in here and tell us that it is a bill for economic stimulus. If you'd come to us in the middle of a pandemic and said, 'I want to give a whole bunch of companies taxpayer money so they can go off and profit,' it would not have passed this chamber. Please do not rewrite history.

You've got companies like Harvey Norman, who almost proudly are saying they took $22 million of JobKeeper money from the Australian public and then doubled their profits. 'We took money from taxpayers and we funnelled it into dividends and executive bonuses.' Do you really think that's fair, Senator Birmingham? Is that what the people of South Australia want, their money funnelled from their wallets to big business? That is not right. That is absolutely inappropriate. Gerry Harvey must be laughing at everyone right now. Every morning, people can see ads in the papers and the tabloids where he's selling his wares, knowing full well those ads are paid for by the taxpayer. Every time we see the Olympic Games—I was up in the press gallery yesterday, and Channel 7 are very happy with their ratings in relation to the Olympic Games—and see a Harvey Norman ad, every taxpayer needs to understand that they're paying for that ad. It's their money that's paying for the ad, and the government thinks that that's okay.

I went onto the New Zealand website while you were talking, Minister. I had a look at how much Harvey Norman were paid in New Zealand's wage subsidy: $12,700,622.40. That's what New Zealand tells us about Harvey Norman, but you're trying to protect Australians from being able to see that very information. Everyone in New Zealand can see how their money was spent. I'm not saying that every single company abused the JobKeeper scheme; I'm not saying that at all. I'm not suggesting that the program shouldn't have been implemented. But transparency in New Zealand has caused a much greater return of money that didn't meet the objective of the program, where companies have decided: 'You know what? I don't want to take money from the taxpayer and use it in a way for which it was not intended.' All Australians can do now in relation to JobKeeper is look at those Harvey Norman ads and increase their resilience and resolve to not shop at Harvey Norman, because it's ripping off Australians.

The accomplice alongside them is the Liberal Party. In particular, we have the finance minister supporting this. Most South Australians would be most unhappy with Senator Birmingham. He's allowing a rort to take place. I limit this to the companies that made greater profits in the period over which they claimed JobKeeper than those in the previous year. I'm not saying all companies were bad.

This bill does not seek to retrospectively do anything. All it does is say, 'Please lay out what taxpayers gave to companies to assist them.' That's all it's doing. There can be no excuse for not supporting this. Even in the amendment where we're saying that, as you pay money to companies moving forward, there ought to be disclosure about that money, I don't see you trying to carve out that part of the amendment and supporting it.

Progress reported.