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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

2020 makes a narrow extension of the current time limit on payment rules authorised by the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Act2020 which allow the Treasurer to establish the JobMaker Hiring Credit scheme.

As announced last night, this scheme will operate from 7 October 2020 until 6 October 2022.

Youth unemployment has increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The JobMaker Hiring Credit will help to accelerate growth in employment during the recovery by giving organisations incentives to take on additional employees that are young job seekers aged 16 to 35 years old.

The JobMaker Hiring Credit will be available to employers for each new job they create over the next 12 months from 7 October 2020 for which they hire an eligible young job seeker.

This will help young people access job opportunities and rebuild their connection to the labour force as the economy recovers from the effects of the Coronavirus.

This payment is a key part of the Government's plan to assist the economic recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic.

Full details of the measure are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This afternoon we rise to debate the government's Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020. From the outset of this pandemic, Labor called for wage subsidies to support vulnerable workers, businesses and communities. We've called for broader labour market programs to promote job creation and to kickstart economic recovery in our nation. Labor welcomed the introduction of JobKeeper, albeit JobKeeper was introduced much later than we would have liked. Labor still very much hold the view that it excluded far too many workers, such as casuals and temporary migrant workers. So it's very disappointing now to see that the government is cutting JobKeeper. You're cutting JobKeeper in the midst of the deepest recession in our nation in nearly a century. You've done all this at a time while unemployment is rising.

In these debates Labor have very much sought to be constructive, to serve the national interest and to not stand in the way of measures. Albeit these measures are not perfect and not as we would have delivered them, they nevertheless deliver things to the Australian people and the Australian economy at this time. We very much reserve, retain and maintain the right to be critical where we see flaws in the approach that the government has taken to economic recovery. In that spirit, today I highlight that Labor support this bill, but we are both very concerned and very disappointed that the government has not learned its lesson from the shortcomings of the JobKeeper program.

Today I put on the record that Labor believe, based on the evidence, that the JobMaker hiring credit will leave many businesses and workers behind. Equally, the government's decision to prematurely cut JobKeeper led to a fall in jobs and a fall in wages in every state and territory. This happened in the first fortnight after the cut. Some 30,000 jobs were lost in the fortnight to 17 October, and 470,000 have been lost as a whole since the outbreak of the virus. What is even further distressing is that we know that 160,000 more Australians are expected to join Australia's unemployment queue by Christmas. That's the prediction. The decision of the Liberals and Nationals to cut JobKeeper, cut JobSeeker and exclude Australians from the new hiring credit scheme means that we have a recession now and a recession that will continue into the future that will be deeper than it otherwise would have been. It will be deeper than necessary and the unemployment queues will be longer than they need to be. The government's slow action on economic recovery and the decisions that this government has taken to exclude Australians from economic support could mean that their legacy from this pandemic will be not only an unheard of level of debt—a trillion dollars of debt—but also a tanking economy and a missed opportunity. This bill is a missed opportunity in that it lacks the ambition to significantly lower the unemployment rate and get more people back into work. What's the point of all that debt if it's not enough to stop the economy from spiralling down and to prevent those job losses?

The enabling legislation before the chamber has little to do, frankly, with the JobMaker hiring credit as this government announced it in the budget. The bill amends the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Act 2020, and it allows the Treasurer to make payments and create schemes with the primary purpose either of improving the prospects of individuals getting employment in Australia or of increasing workforce participation in Australia. I find it concerning that all the design parameters of the JobMaker hiring credit and any additional schemes the Treasurer should wish to introduce are left to delegated legislation that the Treasurer can, effectively, create with the stroke of a pen.

During the estimates hearings I was not impressed by the level of coordination between Treasury, which is responsible for this new program, and the Department of Education, Skills and Employment or the Department of Human Services, who deal with the existing employment promotion schemes, including wage subsidies, that exist within the jobactive network. There was no real sense of the relativity, the integration or the importance of what's already been delivered through disability employment programs, through jobactive or through any of the other schemes. So it does concern me, and it is alarming, that the Treasurer can now effectively create new programs with the stroke of a pen. We do understand the need for flexibility, but the use of delegated legislation means the only option for parliament to deal with objectionable new rules or unintended consequences is by a disallowance motion—disallowing the scheme itself—rather than targeted amendments as per what would be the normal legislative process. It's a like it or lump it approach.

This is wrong, because the government's record shows that real improvements can be made by this chamber to the schemes that they put forward. We're moving amendments in the committee stage to reflect that the government should not be written a blank cheque by this chamber. The rules made under this delegated legislation should be supported by a resolution of both houses of parliament, and we will move an amendment to that end. We will move that better reporting and evaluation processes should be taking place.

I return now to discussing the lack of ambition in this bill and the gaps the government has created due to the eligibility criteria, and I put on record what we discovered in estimates: of the 450,000 jobs expected to be supported by the hiring credit, only 45,000 are expected to be new jobs; and 928,000 Australians have been deliberately excluded from the JobMaker hiring credit as announced in the budget. Just 10 per cent are expected to be new jobs, so how this program can be labelled 'JobMaker' is, tellingly, very debatable. Businesses, in particular small businesses, that have struggled during the pandemic and relied on JobKeeper are very unlikely, in many senses, to be in a position to recover from the coronavirus impacts, where accessing JobKeeper has been necessary, and then take on new staff and expand as the JobKeeper subsidy is withdrawn. I draw on research from the Grattan Institute in putting forward this argument. The institute estimated one million employers that received JobKeeper will effectively be excluded from the hiring credit scheme.

Again, during the Senate estimates committee hearings, Treasury officials were unable to provide estimates of or assumptions for the numbers or types of firms that have lost or will lose JobKeeper, either in its revised form or upon completion of the program when it expires in March, and will therefore either make JobKeeper subsidised workers redundant or will be able to take advantage of the hiring credit. A business has to be in a position to earn enough income to support its existing workforce in order to be eligible for the hiring credit, so it's quite clear that the scheme is not going to be sufficient to make a meaningful dent in unemployment to help our Australian economy to recover. It will be interesting to see the uptake of the scheme and whether businesses that really deserve the support and would otherwise be economically viable suffer because they have been unable to access this hiring credit.

The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, COSBOA, in evidence to the Economics Legislation Committee inquiry into these issues, which I was delighted to participate in, said that the subsidy was not high enough to incentivise employers to take on new staff and that members had indicated that the hiring credit wage subsidies were too low. COSBOA said in its submission:

Given the apparent complexity of the hiring credit administration processes, for small businesses, in particular, the subsidy amounts are insufficient to motivate the additional hiring.

We note that the hiring credit may well be used by more businesses that did comparatively well during the coronavirus epidemic and recession, so the businesses that did well might now be in a stage of business growth. But the issue here is that 90 per cent of these jobs would have been created even if the hiring credit were simply not there for businesses to take up. This is confirmed by Treasury's own evidence.

Most concerning is that some workers will miss out because of the narrow eligibility criteria of the government's design. The scheme has been limited to workers aged 35 years and under and in receipt of the JobSeeker payment or youth allowance in the preceding three months. We know that youth unemployment is far too high in this country, far higher than it should be—this was the case prepandemic—but the solution in current labour market conditions shouldn't be such narrow targeting, particularly when we know there are many other workers who are also missing out. Employment scarring is, as we know, a real problem for younger workers. We see it in the data, we see it in the literature, we see that these workers are worse off in the long term. They are usually on lower wages and will be more welfare dependent as a result of long-term unemployment from a recession. We very much support the idea that labour market programs should be created and activated throughout economic recovery. That is what the Keating government did with the Working Nation plan in the 1990s.

There are not complementary labour market programs to help workers over the age of 35 except for, in mere passing comment, the Restart Program aimed at workers over 50, where not even half of the participants remained in employment after six months. The hiring credit has incentivised employers to hire those who fit the criteria as part-time or casual workers. The ACTU's submission to the inquiry detailed:

… under the programme as currently written, an employer with a number of vacancies which together represent 3 FTE (Full-time Equivalent) roles could hire 3 full-time workers and receive a subsidy of $600 a week. Alternately, they could hire 6 part-time or casual employees to fill the same vacancy and receive a subsidy payment of $1200 a week … virtually the same outlay for the employer. This programme appears to be designed to produce insecure jobs …

This government should be resourcing agencies to ensure employees are able to raise matters with enforcement agencies and have confidence those concerns will be investigated but also protect workers who are at risk of employment discrimination or having their hours reduced. Labor will not oppose this bill, but we do not— (Time expired)

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on behalf of the Greens to speak on the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020. Everyone has a right to a liveable income and a right to a safe, secure and meaningful job that pays them decent wages to live a good life. Even before the pandemic, we should have been really concerned about unemployment in Australia. In March 2020, the national unemployment rate was 5.2 per cent and was even higher for young people, at 11.6 per cent. The underemployment crisis has been one which has been hidden for far too long. The underemployment rate was even worse at 8.8 per cent nationally. It was above 10 per cent for women of working age and 19.1 per cent for young people.

Insecure jobs have plagued workers in Australia for far too long. The role that casualised and precarious work played in the devastating second wave of COVID-19 in Victoria should have been a wake-up call for the Morrison government. COVID-19 also brought to the fore the struggles of casual workers. Instead of a real plan to create a fair, sustainable economy, we have been presented with a plan for an unambitious unemployment rate of six per cent and the JobMaker hiring credit. That's a plan for nearly two million Australians to be unemployed and underemployed, with no assurance of adequate social security payments to enable them to live with dignity. It's a corporate welfare scheme with no promise of creating good, secure, well-paying jobs, just as the government is ripping the social safety net out from under people by cutting JobSeeker and withdrawing JobKeeper. And let's not forget that there was absolutely no support provided to international students and others on temporary visas who continue to suffer and continue to struggle.

If the government's plan is for the economy to have two million unemployed and underemployed people, it is the government's responsibility to take care of them. If the government wants everyone to have a job, they should create enough good jobs for everyone to have one if they want one. The JobMaker hiring credit policy is a recipe for churning vulnerable young people through low-paid, dead-end jobs and funnelling massive amounts of money to business, including huge multinationals like McDonald's and Coles, who have been embroiled in wage theft.

The government says that they want to help young people, but churning young people through short-term, low-paid, exploitative jobs over and over again doesn't help them. This is nothing short of demoralising and confidence-shattering for them just to be seen as an economic unit. Those without a job or enough of a job will just have to struggle.

As I have said before in this place, out of the devastation of the pandemic, we have an opportunity to build a better world. We have the power to end the inequality, poverty and precarity that we have seen flourish over the last few decades. If we only choose to do so, we can create a society and an economy that works to care for our people and our planet. If we want to help people get back to work—into really meaningful, good, safe work—we need to put the needs of the unemployed, the underemployed and the precariously employed people at the centre of our response to this crisis. During the recent Senate committee inquiry into this bill, I had the opportunity to hear from the Australian Unemployed Workers Union. I think they summed up the situation perfectly. This is what they had to say:

The hiring credit will make bad worse: what we desperately need is a program that responds to actual problems with structural solutions.

…   …   …

This crisis can't be fixed by punishing us with cuts to income support or a hiring subsidy bandaid.

…   …   …

The dramatic reshaping of the economy gives the government an opportunity to invest in communities and people so that we're all supported and fairly rewarded for our contributions. We're the people hurt by the lack of jobs and that's why we're grateful to the committee for including us today. We're here to make sure the policies that are supposed to help us actually do.

The Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020 will establish a scheme the government claims will create and improve employment opportunities in Australia. However, it lacks important details and protections for workers, gives enormous power to the minister, locks in insecure and low-paid jobs for young people and would allow big business to use public money to bolster their profits under the guise of a wage subsidy. The Greens have serious concerns about this bill, and I will move amendments in the Senate to try and address some of them.

This bill grants very broad powers to the minister to hand out public money to employers, and not much else. The bill doesn't actually establish the JobMaker hiring credit scheme itself. It doesn't provide a single detail about the scheme nor does it detail the eligibility criteria. Instead, it delegates power to the minister to establish an unlimited number of publicly funded wage subsidy schemes until 6 October 2022, with the only criteria being that they improve the prospects of individuals getting employment in Australia or increase workforce participation in Australia.

We do not support the JobMaker hiring credit scheme's being established by the minister effectively solely through regulations, nor do we support the broad and unrestricted powers proposed to be granted to the minister in this bill. The JobMaker hiring credit should be created through legislation and be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and amendment. That's why we will be supporting Senator Patrick's amendment, to bring the rules as they are currently drafted in the exposure draft into the legislation. And, even though these might be changes that could further be changed, we support the intention of this amendment to return parliamentary oversight to the scheme.

Throughout the pandemic we have seen workers suffer, losing their jobs and their income. Perversely and obscenely while workers are doing it tough we have seen some of Australia's biggest companies increase their profits and pay out even bigger executive bonuses and higher dividends to shareholders. In August it was revealed that the publicly funded JobKeeper wage subsidy was being used to prop up company profits. Seventeen of Australia's top companies paid $250 million in dividends while also receiving JobKeeper. Under the proposed JobMaker rules, there is nothing stopping big businesses abusing the hiring credit in the same way. Wage subsidies should subsidise wages, not corporate profits and higher dividends for shareholders.

Analysis shows that the JobMaker scheme will significantly benefit high-performing businesses, such as supermarkets and large fast-food companies—that is, giant corporate outfits notorious for exploiting and underpaying their younger casualised workers. Perhaps recognising how toxic using the hiring credit could be for their brand, supermarket giant Woolworths used their submission to the recent committee inquiry to deal themselves out of the scheme.

During the committee hearings the executive director of Per Capita, Emma Dawson, in response to a question from me, shared concerns about companies paying dividends receiving the credit. She stated:

… certainly before taxpayers are asked to pick up the bill for labour for companies, that should be taken from profits in the first instance.

…   …   …

I disagree most strongly—any company that is able to pay either dividends to shareholders or executive bonuses should be excluded from taxpayer support.

Companies that have paid increased dividends during the pandemic should not be eligible for the JobMaker hiring credit, and I will move amendments to ensure this.

Many big businesses eligible for the JobMaker hiring credit scheme have a history of facing claims of underpaying and exploiting their workers. Coles saw a 7.1 per cent increase in net profit to nearly $1 billion in 2020, and in November announced that it was in a stronger position than pre pandemic, despite having previously announced underpaying workers by $20 million. McDonald's is currently facing a potential class action after denying hundreds of thousands of workers paid rest breaks. Super Retail Group admitted to underpaying their workers up to $61 million. Qantas was recently found to have underpaid its workers with respect to the JobKeeper payment. I am deeply concerned that this bill does not contain any provisions that revoke eligibility for businesses who are found to be underpaying their workers. Our concern is shared by a number of stakeholders. During the committee hearing, ACTU president Michele O'Neil told us:

If there is an abuse of the scheme where there have been underpayments, breaches in health and safety provisions et cetera, that should render the employer ineligible for the scheme.

The Australian Unemployed Workers Union recommended that public funds should not subsidise companies that have breached workers' rights, including businesses who have underpaid their workers. The AUWU recommend that businesses found to have engaged in such activity during the JobMaker hiring credit scheme or in the two years prior to receiving funds under the scheme be required to pay back all money received. I will be moving amendments to ensure that businesses will not be eligible to receive the JobMaker hiring credit if they are found to be underpaying their workers and will be required to repay the total amount received under the scheme.

The bill also fails to provide a dispute resolution process for any issues relating to the JobMaker hiring credit, including for workers who have been fired or have had their hours reduced. Treasury has suggested that existing protections for workers, such as unfair-dismissal provisions in the Fair Work Act, should ameliorate concerns about this. However, a minimum employment period of six months or 12 months in small businesses is required for workers to be able to claim unfair dismissal, and this requirement leaves many workers behind and without access to necessary protections. During the committee hearing, Treasury referred to the hotline set up by the ATO to deal with concerns relating to the JobKeeper scheme, and suggested that such a system might be established again for the JobMaker scheme. This is insufficient and will not adequately deal with disputes or protect workers. I will be moving amendments to deal with those issues.

I hold deep concerns about workers losing their jobs or losing hours as a result of this scheme. A business that fires workers or reduces workers' hours in order to exploit the hiring credit should be ineligible for the scheme. Again, the Greens will be moving amendments to that effect. We know that the primary motivation of a corporation is to maximise profits for its shareholders. This is one of the most fundamental goals of private enterprise. If a business is able to fiddle with its staffing structure to increase its head count and its payroll, and thereby make more money through the hiring credit, it will do so. At a time when it's hard enough for so many underemployed workers to sustain themselves, the prospect of lost hours just so big business can pay out bigger dividends and bonuses is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for the government to open up workers and households to this risk. There must be safeguards for workers' jobs and hours in primary legislation.

Instead of creating flawed schemes like the JobMaker hiring credit, the government should be directly investing in well-paid, secure public sector jobs to build a better, safer, fairer and sustainable post-pandemic society and economy. A responsible Commonwealth government would work with people and communities to lead the transition to 100 per cent renewable energy as soon as possible to mitigate the climate catastrophe that we are staring down. It would boost our investment in the caring economy to create enough jobs to meet demand for services and ensure that people doing essential labour in education, in child care, in health and in community services are not overstretched and underpaid. It would invest massively in public housing so that everyone has a safe, secure and affordable place to call home. It would revitalise Australian research and development and green manufacturing to help sculpt the economy and the future. It would create jobs to revive and rehabilitate our precious environment. The government do have a choice here: they can invest in public service and secure long-term jobs or keep perpetuating precarious work, which hurts people. They are choosing to do the latter with this bill.

This bill should not be passed without amendments. It will make things worse. There is so much work to be done to create a decent world for everyone. The government should help do that work, not waste public money on corporate welfare and on jobs that won't be secure and might not even come to be.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Faruqi. I'm assuming you are doing those amendments you spoke about through Committee of the Whole? Thank you.

Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my great pleasure to rise and speak on the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020. In doing so, I proudly say, in addressing Senator Faruqi's concerns she has raised about choice, that this is about choice. This is about a government that is making a choice to back young Australians. I have to say, I think many supporters of the Greens party, and to some extent of Labor as well, would be shocked to hear the level of opposition to the JobMaker scheme that we are now hearing in this debate in the Senate. What this says to young Australians is: the Morrison government stands with you. We recognise that you are Australia's future. We recognise that, at this time of enormous uncertainty in our nation, in the midst of a pandemic, your future is critical to our economic recovery. That is why we are backing young Australians with this really important scheme.

We have seen unprecedented economic support delivered by this government in the form of $101 billion in JobKeeper; a doubling of the safety net in JobSeeker, a massive amount of support for young Australians not just with this scheme—100,000 new apprenticeships and traineeships are being supported by a 50 per cent wage subsidy; the new JobTrainer Fund, which will create up to 340,000 free or low-cost training places for school leavers and jobseekers; and more than 11 million taxpayers getting a tax cut, which has now been backdated to 1 July this year. Right across this economy, our government stands with all Australians as we battle this terrible pandemic and as we work hard together in our economic recovery.

The JobMaker hiring credit is a partnership forged between the Australian government, Australian employers and younger Australians. The hiring credit is designed to provide businesses with incentives to take on additional young jobseekers. It is designed, as our economy recovers from the ravages of the COVID pandemic, to assist young people to access job opportunities. Targeted at 16- to 35-year-olds, this important financial support will provide the JobKeeper hiring credit to employers for every new job created over the course of the next 12 months. It recognises that, when employers are making choices about who to bring onto their books—who to hire—there is an incentive to bring on young people who may not have the experience of older workers and who, therefore, may otherwise end up at the back of the queue. We are determined that young jobseekers will not be at the back of the queue under a Morrison government. We want all jobseekers to get a fair choice.

It is extraordinary that Senator Faruqi, in her contribution, talked about supporting the public sector and not the private sector, which of course employs eight out of 10 Australians. Why would the Greens be focusing on the public sector and not the private sector and demonising profits as if they were somehow evil? It is profits that create jobs. If businesses do not make a profit, they cannot hire employees. I find the way in which the Greens have deserted young Australians, in opposing this bill, to be quite extraordinary.

This represents a $4 billion commitment from the Morrison government to support—I say the word 'support'—an estimated 450,000 positions for young Australians. A great deal of my focus as a senator in Victoria, particularly in the Geelong region, in Ballarat, in Bendigo and in Gorton—in my patron seats—is to stand up for all of those wonderful job opportunities in those regional parts of Victoria. There are many wonderful employers in regional Victoria who want to do everything they can to get out there and to get through this as quickly as they can. At last the ring of steel has come down or been lifted in Victoria, which means that Melburnians can now travel to regional Victoria and support thousands of wonderful businesses there, particularly in hospitality and tourism, where so many young Victorians get an opportunity to work, perhaps for the first time. This is an incredibly important scheme, on top of the other incredible support that we have announced and delivered as part of our response, including the $101 billion for JobKeeper.

Under this bill, eligible employers will be able to receive $200 per week for every additional eligible employee hired between the ages of 16 and 29 and $100 for 30- to 35-year-olds. It's to be paid for up to 12 months from the job creation date, for new jobs created, right through until 6 October 2021. This is a program aimed fairly and squarely at giving hope for the future to young Australian jobseekers. I think all Australians will look back with an incredible amount of pride at how our government has responded to this pandemic. It disappoints me that there is not bipartisanship across the political divide when you look at how hard our government has worked to ensure that all Australians are supported.

This program features a credit and reporting system through the Australian Taxation Office to facilitate the initiative. There will be robust integrity measures drawing on the existing regulatory and enforcement infrastructure of taxation law and other laws relating to unfair dismissal. Again, I really do take issue with the Greens characterising this as a way of leading to the exploitation of young workers, because we have very strong laws in this country to prevent and prohibit underpayment and exploitation. To any employer who exploits or underpays an employee, I say, 'Shame!' The law must and should come down very heavily on every single employer who thinks that they can get away with this.

I am very pleased to see, including in evidence before the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, that there was much broad support for this initiative, including from the Property Council of Australia, the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia, the Australian Retailers Association, and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Melbourne university's Professor Jeff Borland said that, in his judgement, the size of the impact on young people and the potential scarring effects are large enough that if you were to target any job creation measure to a group it would be to young people. It is shocking to me that there is so much opposition to these incredibly important initiatives.

Youth unemployment is one of the biggest issues that we as a country face, and this is such an incredibly important measure in making sure we do not leave young Australians behind. We recognise that in the committee report, and, throughout those hearings, there were some concerns identified. Treasury has provided very firm advice in relevance to the remedies which are available in the Fair Work Act, through the Fair Work Ombudsman and through administrative processes of the ATO. I do also say there are very strong prohibitions in relation to discrimination against older Australians who are seeking work. We do have a number of programs specifically targeted to older Australians. These measures provide historic support for young Australians. They are a very important part of our massive economic response to the coronavirus pandemic. It is a pleasure to commend this bill to the Senate.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be speaking in support of the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020, and Labor certainly support this bill. But, as you will see from my contribution, there are a number of concerns that Labor have in relation to this bill and we certainly would encourage the government to fix up those concerns. One of the reasons why we support this bill is that Labor have repeatedly called on this government to expand the support it is providing to Australians who have been hit by the COVID recession. Sadly, this bill is a continuation of the government's approach, which is to actually withdraw support, contain support or narrow support, even though the economic situation for so many Australians is still so precarious.

If we go back to the very beginning, when COVID first hit this country and businesses started to be closed down, it was Labor who were calling for wage subsidies to be paid. Of course the Prime Minister and his allies have tried to reinvent history to argue that the JobKeeper wage subsidy was all their own doing and invention. But any fair-minded observer of the history of these measures will see that, for quite some time, Labor were calling for a wage subsidy to be introduced and that it really wasn't until the British conservative government decided to introduce a wage subsidy themselves that we finally saw some change from this government. So we were calling for those wage subsidies to be paid, as a constructive suggestion to this government, to try to avoid the sorts of unemployment queues that we saw outside Centrelink offices so soon after lockdowns were announced.

Our suggestions in relation to this bill are made in that same constructive spirit. Unfortunately, the government have previously ignored a range of suggestions that we've made to improve JobKeeper. They have continued to exclude well over a million casual workers, temporary migrant workers, arts workers, entertainment workers and council workers from receiving JobKeeper. That has unnecessarily cost many, many jobs around our country. Many employers—whether they be councils or in the arts, entertainment, hospitality or others—really were left with no option other than to lay off staff when they actually would have preferred to keep their staff on through payments of JobKeeper. But the government removed that choice and consigned well over a million people to unnecessary unemployment.

The really fundamental point that Labor have been trying to make over and over again, both in this chamber and outside, is that we know there is a recession underway and we know that it is the deepest, worst recession that our country has seen since the Great Depression nearly 100 years ago, yet this government has actively made choices to impose more pain on Australians through its decisions around the JobKeeper payments and now the hiring credit scheme as well. The government has continually made decisions to exclude certain categories of worker and certain types of business from some of the income support that is being paid. It means that, at a time when we should be seeing government step up to the plate, stimulate the economy and keep money flowing through people's pockets so that they can spend it in businesses and create further employment, the government are doing exactly the opposite. They're removing those payments. They're reigning in people's ability to spend, extending the recession and making things worse. It's exactly the wrong way to be going. As I say, they're doing it again here with the JobMaker hiring credit.

We know that there are many Australians quite rightly very worried about their jobs right now. There are, of course, the hundreds of thousands of people who have lost their jobs following the lockdowns and the COVID recession, and there are at least as many people who have maintained their employment for now but are very worried about how long that employment will remain in place. It's no wonder that people are so worried, when you look at some of the data that is coming through the Bureau of Statistics about what's actually happening right now in the Australian economy. The most recent ABS figures showed a fall in jobs and wages in every state and territory in the first full fortnight after the Morrison government cut JobKeeper prematurely. As I've said, the decisions this government has made and is making right now are actually making things worse. They're actually leading to people losing jobs. They're actually leading to the recession becoming deeper and longer than it needs to be. What we should be seeing from this government is every possible effort being put into bringing the country out of recession as quickly as possible and getting unemployment down as quickly as possible.

The ABS figures show that in the very first full fortnight after the government cut its JobKeeper payments we saw a fall in jobs and wages in every state and territory. It doesn't actually give me much pleasure to say that we told the government so, but we did. We tried to get the government to change course. We were out there repeatedly saying that it was too early to be cutting back on JobKeeper and it would cost jobs. The government said, 'No, no, it'll be fine; we've got to get people off these payments at some point.' And what do you know? Exactly what we predicted would happen has happened—jobs and wages are falling in every state and territory around Australia. Thirty thousand jobs were lost in Australia in the fortnight to 17 October, which means that, overall, 470,000 jobs in Australia have been lost since the COVID outbreak began, and 160,000 more Australians are expected to join the unemployment queues by Christmas.

The government is desperate to convince Australians that we've seen the worst of this—we've turned the corner, green shoots, things are getting better, it's all going to be okay, the government's got it in hand—but these facts don't lie. Things are getting worse. Despite the number of jobs that have already been lost, the government's own figures tell us that they're expecting 160,000 more Australians to join the unemployment queues by Christmas. We have not turned the corner. Things are getting worse for so many Australians. Yet the government continue down the path of cutting JobKeeper and JobSeeker. They excluded a huge range of workers from receiving JobKeeper in the first place, and now they want to constrain their hiring credit in a way that excludes so many workers and businesses. If the government were actually serious about trying to get our economy out of recession as quickly as possible and getting Australians back into work as quickly as possible then they would be listening to some of the suggestions that we have been making, which are intended to do exactly that.

The government has admitted through its figures in the budget that we won't get back to the pre-COVID unemployment level in Australia for years. This is not something that's about to end. And that's before we even get to the point about the more than one million Australians who are underemployed, who have work but want more. They might be getting five hours work a week, nowhere near enough to feed themselves and their families, and desperately want more. But the government just shrugs its shoulders and says, 'We'll do a bit here and there, but we're not going to try really hard to get that unemployment rate down to pre-COVID levels any time soon.' They're content to let things be and spend a bit of money—sure, I'll give them credit for that—but nowhere near the amount that is required to get unemployment down as quickly as it should be. This will have consequences for many humans. This means that families won't be able to feed themselves, kids will miss out on school excursions and a lot of Australians will go into poverty. That is a really great shame when the government has alternatives. It can do more to get people into work and to keep them in work. The options are available; recommendations are being made not just by Labor but by every think tank you care to speak to, but the government doesn't want to do that.

I note that this bill continues down a concerning path for the government, where it sets up enabling legislation for payments to be made but leaves the detail as to who receives what for the Treasurer to determine with a stroke of his pen. Unfortunately, that approach hasn't seen the Treasurer take up the opportunity to widen JobKeeper in the way that we asked him to. The approach hasn't seen the social security minister take the opportunity to increase the JobKeeper supplement in the way we have asked them to. We certainly acknowledge that there needs to be some flexibility for the government at this time, when things are changing rapidly, but the continued use of delegated legislation, like we see in this bill, means that the only option for the parliament to deal with any new rules that aren't fit for purpose or exclude people unfairly is by a disallowance motion, rather than actually proposing amendments, as you would normally do in the usual legislative process.

So far, one of the biggest concerns about this hiring credit measure that the government is putting forward is that it is yet another example of this government, and in particular this Prime Minister, being utterly obsessed with making announcements that do not stand up to scrutiny for more than the first headline. We know that this Prime Minister, with his marketing background and his obsession with marketing, really only cares about getting the headline that he's after, and then he runs away, never to be seen again, when issues arise about that announcement or about the promise not being delivered. We've seen it with the NAIF, the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility, a $5 billion fund that, five years after it was announced, has spent less than five per cent of its funds. We've seen it with the Emergency Response Fund, a $4 billion fund that was set up, with the opposition's support, to provide additional disaster recovery and mitigation assistance. Eighteen months after it was announced, not a cent has been spent from that fund. We've seen it with the drought fund, we've seen it with urban congestion funds, we've seen it with the arts funds that the government announced but hasn't actually spent and now we're seeing it here as well.

When this initiative was first announced, the government was out there saying, 'This is going to create 450,000 new jobs.' Well, that should have rung warning bells, because we know that every jobs figure this government gives is grossly inflated. It didn't take many questions, I have to say, from my colleagues in Senate estimates to uncover that, in fact, only 45,000 new jobs are going to be created as a result of this initiative. I don't know why this government can't be honest with people about what its funding will actually deliver. If the funding is going to deliver 45,000 new jobs, then just say that; just be honest with people. Why does the government have to add a zero on the end to turn it into 450,000 new jobs when it's patently untrue and Treasury bureaucrats have confirmed that it's untrue? The only possible reason for doing that is that this Prime Minister and this government as a whole only care about getting a big headline. A judgement was obviously made that 45,000 new jobs wasn't going to cut it, wasn't going to get an announcement because it wasn't good enough—and it's not good enough!—so instead the government decided to add another zero to the end of that figure, turn it into 450,000 jobs, mislead Australians and get the headlines it was after.

The number of new jobs that will actually be created by this hiring credit is dwarfed by the number of Australians who have been deliberately excluded from receiving this hiring credit. We know that nearly one million Australians over 35 will not be eligible for this hiring credit. There will be many, many businesses that will not be eligible for this hiring credit, because they were receiving the JobKeeper payment. They were receiving JobKeeper payments because they were almost driven out of business. They're exactly the kinds of businesses that we should be getting behind to take on more people, to keep them afloat. Instead of that, again we see another example of the government tightening the screws, tightening eligibility, reducing the number of people and the number of businesses who can obtain support, just like they did by excluding people from getting JobKeeper in the first place and by cutting JobKeeper before the economy was ready for that to happen. Over and over again we see this government making decisions which will actually make this recession worse, which will leave more people unemployed for longer, which will delay the recovery and which will impose even more pain on Australians. The government's got to stop doing this.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020. This is the scheme the government initially said would create 450,000 jobs, primarily for young people, but it was soon revealed that it will in fact deliver one-tenth of that. And then when we saw the actual legislation—blink and you'll miss it! There's virtually no detail in there at all, and almost everything is left up to the minister to deal with by regulation, without the benefit of the scrutiny of this chamber.

The government claims that this will create employment and opportunities for Australia, but there's no detail in the bill. There would be no protection for workers. It would give huge power to the minister. It would, in fact, promote insecure and low-paid jobs for young people. And it would once again allow big business to use public money to bolster their profits under the guise of a wage subsidy. The audacity of this government knows no limit. This is a corporate welfare scheme with no promise of creating good, secure, well-paying jobs and with no protections for existing workers, who could well be fired and replaced with workers eligible under this scheme so that their employer can get a bit of extra public dough from this government, who it probably donates to in a cosy little relationship there.

This bill grants incredibly broad powers to the minister to hand out public money to employers. It basically doesn't do much else at all. It doesn't establish the JobMaker hiring credit scheme itself; it doesn't provide a single detail about the scheme and it doesn't detail the eligibility criteria. It simply delegates all of that down to the minister, who's got, I think, two years to set up an unlimited number of publicly funded wage subsidy schemes with very little guidance and very little constraint and with much benefit for employers and potentially very little benefit to actual workers.

We have seen throughout the pandemic the absolute hell of a time that people have had. People have lost their jobs. People have been scraping by. But that hasn't been the universal experience, has it? The 25 richest people in Australia got richer, and some of the largest companies operating in our domestic economy made massive profits and paid massive dividends. So this pandemic hasn't had a fairly-experienced economic impact. When you have some of our biggest companies increasing their profits and paying out even bigger executive bonuses and higher dividends to shareholders, wage subsidy schemes should subsidise wages, not the profits of big business. Yet there's no protection for this bill to make sure that workers receive the benefit of public funding, a concept that we support, particularly in times like this. This bill doesn't guarantee the delivery of that support to workers, because that's all left up to the minister.

The minister can simply create a program, a plan or a regulation over the next two years that gives money to big employers with very little protections. That's exactly why the Greens will be moving amendments to put in place those protections to make sure that workers get the benefit of this scheme. We want to make sure that wage thieves—companies that are notorious for underpaying their workers—can't simply take yet more public funds and pocket more private profits whilst their workers are still being done out of the wages they are legally entitled to. These are sensible amendments that we hope this chamber will support, but that remains to be seen.

We had to fight to get a committee inquiry into this bill. This government didn't want to have an inquiry into this bill and was dragged to doing so. During a committee hearing the President of the ACTU, Michele O'Neil, said:

If there is an abuse of the scheme where there have been underpayments, breaches in health and safety provisions et cetera, that should render the employer ineligible for the scheme.

That's a very sensible approach. Public money should not be rewarding bad behaviour by big corporations. If it has been shown that they underpay their workers, if it has been shown that they pay out massive dividends to either shareholders or their highly paid directors and managers and if it has been shown that they don't need public support, they shouldn't be getting the additional public support. Workers should be getting that support. So we'll be moving the amendments my colleague Senator Faruqi has outlined in lovely detail to address those issues and to put in place those protections.

The other thing this bill fails to do is set up a dispute resolution process for workers who are fired in order that an employer can avail themselves of this JobMaker scheme and hire two new people. That fired worker needs somewhere to go. Actually we'd prefer that businesses were precluded from wantonly and baselessly firing existing workers in the first place. This scheme should not be a trigger for employers to simply fire existing workers and rehire people in order to get some public support to do so. Yet another of our amendments will address that issue and will protect workers from being tossed aside by their employer unlawfully in order for that employer to avail themselves of this public subsidy.

I've talked a little bit about the amendments that we will move to this bill. This government should not be promoting insecure low-paid work that threatens the employment of existing older workers. The Fair Work Commission needs to have jurisdiction to address any such claims. Our amendment would do that.

There should be a provision in this bill that stops wage thieves from getting public money. Sadly, history is littered with examples. I think one of the previous speakers was somewhat aghast that that happens. Yes, it is disgusting, it shouldn't happen and it is against the law, but it still happens. Often it's up to workers themselves to take on these corporations and fight for their rights.

Coles is perhaps the most recent example. They saw a 7.1 per cent increase in their net profit in the pandemic, yet in recent years they have been successfully taken to court for underpaying their workers to the tune of $20 million. That's a very large company that has not demonstrated good employer behaviour, has made an awful lot of profit this year and does not need additional taxpayers' support. But, under this bill, they can still put their hand out and get taxpayer money, despite being wage thieves and despite making squillions in this pandemic.

McDonald's is another example. They're facing a class action this minute for denying hundreds of thousands of workers rest breaks. There are a few other examples here: Qantas and Super Retail Group. There are many large corporates that haven't paid their workers properly in the past that would be eligible to get taxpayer support under this bill as it is currently drafted. There is a very easy and sensible fix. We are happy to support employers who are doing the right thing and who are passing this money on to their workers and creating jobs. Employers who are pocketing the money, making additional private profits, and underpaying their workers should not get this support. It's a very simple amendment and a very reasonable one at that.

I've talked about employers who haven't paid their workers properly. I've talked about the need for the Fair Work Commission to actually have jurisdiction over workers who might be sacked so that employers can avail themselves of this scheme. The other important issue is dividends. Our amendment says that if businesses have actually paid increased dividends between March of this year and the end of the scheme they should be ineligible—another very simple concept. If you are doing very well economically, despite the fact that this nation is in a technical recession thanks to the pandemic—and years of mismanagement, I might add—then you do not need additional taxpayer support. Our amendment would say that you've simply got to stand on your own two feet. Taxpayers should not be subsidising the private profits of big corporations. I don't think you'd find an Australian out there who disagrees with that, but you may find several people in here who do.

I hark back to the fact that those same large corporations make very generous donations, in fact, to both sides of politics. One wonders whether this is just a continuation of that very cosy relationship between large corporations and this government—in fact, both of the big parties. Australians are fed up with that. What we've got here is a $4 billion corporate welfare scheme with no protection for workers, which comes off the back of a $99 billion corporate subsidy in the budget. This government can't turn around without handing out more public money to big corporations when, in fact—as the Greens have been saying for many a year now, and in particular in this pandemic—if you actually want to generate employment, if you want to create jobs, then directly invest in the services that people deserve and need and rely upon, like hospitals and schools, and rebuild our manufacturing base. Let's have some public investment in public manufacturing. Let's build stuff again. What's more, let's build clean energy components so that we can address the climate crisis at the same time as tackling the economic crisis.

This is not rocket science. It's about using taxpayer dollars wisely to create good outcomes—to create jobs, to stimulate the economy and to address the climate crisis. That's a far better use of the $99 billion that we saw in the budget going to big corporations—and this bill in particular, with $4 billion in corporate welfare, with no protection for workers and no guarantee that that money will actually flow to create jobs that are anything other than low-paid insecure work.

We are very worried that existing workers, particularly older workers, will be sacked by their employers and then two new younger folk will be rehired on insecure conditions with no protections themselves, just so the employer can get the benefit of this small amount of public subsidy. That is not a situation this government should be using taxpayer dollars to deliver on. It is not a good situation for workers. We can fix this bill. That's what we're proposing to do with our amendments that strengthen the Fair Work Commission's jurisdiction, that stop that wanton sacking of existing employees and that mean that companies who have made massive profits or that have been shown to underpay their workers are not eligible. This is a fixable scheme, but what remains to be seen is whether there's any will to actually back any of those sensible amendments, many of which witnesses to the inquiry themselves proposed and supported.

We are proud supporters of wage subsidy schemes but not ones that don't have any protection for workers; that give complete discretion to the minister to make it up as they go along for a period of two entire years; that could in fact see mass unemployment; and, of course, that are going to actually produce one-tenth of the jobs that the government initially claimed. So this is our position on this bill. We look forward to seeing whether or not there's support for our amendments once we get to the committee stage. This is a bad bill that could be improved, and it remains to be seen whether this government will finally start using public money judiciously to create jobs, to provide services and to address the climate crisis. That would be a far better spend of the $4 billion for this bill or the $99 billion that we saw go to corporate welfare in this budget.

James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to be rising to speak in support of the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020, as it goes to the core of one of the issues that I came here to fight for and that I spoke about in my first speech—that is, the dignity of work. The economic benefits of work are obvious. A steady pay cheque provides financial security for individuals and their families, and it allows them to plan for the future with confidence. Material living standards like these should never be lightly dismissed. Of course, it also provides tax receipts for government, which allow us to fund the important things that we all value, like a strong national defence and a social safety net. But, in some ways, even more important than these financial benefits are the other benefits that come with work, often described as the dignity of work. I want to briefly dwell on these important philosophical points before I turn to how this bill supports this objective and provide some reflections on why it is particularly needed in my home state of Victoria.

The concept of the dignity of work is most closely associated with Catholic theology. As senators may know, I'm not personally religious, but I have a strong appreciation for their social teachings. The concept has been very well summarised by John Coleman, who wrote in the Jesuit review America:

… work not only implies remuneration sufficient for adequate housing, food, medical help etc. but also involves a kind of justice as participation. Through work we participate in society and have an active voice. Thus, even if welfare for those who can not find work or can not do it for physical reasons is a good thing, it is no substitute for the dignity which accrues to those who actively participate in work and in society.

This is strongly supported by the evidence available to us from social science research. We know that people engaged in paid employment report much higher levels of seemingly unrelated measures of wellbeing. They are happier, they are healthier and they are better connected to their communities than people without work. This shouldn't surprise us if we reflect on what it means to have a job. A job provides not just an income and opportunities for socialisation and engagement but a sense of self-belief and confidence. As humans, we have a deep need to be needed by others, to be of value to them. Of course, it is possible to fulfil this need outside of work—for example, in our families and through civil society—but, for most people, there is no substitute for paid employment in delivering this sense of value. For many people, the routine and the obligations that are imposed on us by work provide the healthy structure that we need to thrive. Conversely, we also know that unemployment can have a profoundly negative affect on your health and happiness. In particular, we know that long-term unemployment is terrible for our sense of pride, our connection to community and our health and happiness. It truly is a social evil which must be fought.

Sadly, we also know that, coming out of an economic crises like this one which has been caused by COVID-19 and the tough restrictions that have been imposed by government in order to fight the health crisis, many more Australians will be without work and all that that comes with it—all that dignity that comes with it. This is no more so, sadly, than in my home state of Victoria, which has been hit particularly hard, thanks to the second long and very painful lockdown that we have endured. As a result, there will be many more job losses and business failures in Victoria than in the rest of the country. Right now, there are more than half a million Victorians who have lost their jobs since the beginning of this crisis. While the rest of the country has been recovering because they were able to get on top of the health challenges posed by COVID-19 and because they didn't encounter the issues that we unfortunately had in Victoria with hotel quarantine, which re-released the virus into the community after Victoria had effectively achieved elimination of the virus like all other states and territories, ABS figures show that Victoria has continued to decline in the second half of this year. There were 73,000 Victorians laid off in August and September alone, while another 81,000 left the labour force completely—those potential discouraged workers who have left and are no longer seeking any further employment. Another 58,000 of them had their hours reduced, and 112,000 Victorians who were employed in September did not work any hours at all, often either having been stood down from their employment or being in so-called zombie firms which for now are supported by JobKeeper but which we know will not be viable forever and in perpetuity. At 14.9 per cent, Victoria's underemployment rate is the highest in the nation. That's a combination of those who are, sadly, without work at all and many others who are seeking more work than they can currently obtain, more hours than they are currently being given.

The bitter experience from previous recessions is that even when economies do bounce back quickly in terms of GDP growth figures and other metrics, bumping out of a technical recession of two negative quarters—and we certainly hope that's the case in Australia this time around—it still takes many years to regain precrisis levels of employment. That's the experience not just in Australia but internationally. Employment, sadly, is a lagging indicator of an economic recovery. Given the importance of employment to people's dignity and self-worth, it is so important that we speed up that process as quickly as possible. Sadly, we know that some people will leave the workforce during this time never to re-enter it. They will go on to other forms of support, like the disability support pension, the age pension or Newstart, and won't return to the employment market at all.

Young people are particularly hard hit by recessions. Young people who graduate from school or other forms of tertiary education in a recession take longer to find a job, are paid less and have fewer opportunities for advancement than their peers who graduate in better times. It truly is a lottery of timing. Through no fault of their own, just the time that they were born and time they are graduating from education, if they happen to graduate in a recession, we know that they'll suffer significantly reduced economic opportunities as a result. It can take decades to overcome this so-called scarring of the labour market.

Programs like the JobMaker hiring credit are not solutions on their own, but they do form an important part of a package of wider forms which are designed to get people back into work as soon as possible. Along with personal income tax cuts, incentives for businesses to invest and record infrastructure spending, the JobMaker hiring credit will spur the creation of new jobs to combat this evil of unemployment. Wider economic reforms will also be necessary, including to industrial relations to ensure there are as few barriers to job creation as possible. Like many, I am eagerly awaiting the outcome of the Minister for Industrial Relations' consultation with business and unions. I'm hopeful that some of the old rivalries, which we know have dominated these debates and prevented reform in the past, can be put aside to ensure our economy is freed up as much as possible to create new jobs. It is remarkable to reflect for a moment that the Fair Work Act, which we operate under now and which was enacted by the Rudd government shortly after it came to office in 2007, has largely remained untouched and unchanged for 13 years. There's been no progress at all on industrial relations in that time. I think it is clearly going to be a barrier to that bounce-back if it is not addressed. So I'll be eagerly awaiting the reforms, which I hope come with consensus between business, unions and government, out of the discussion led by Christian Porter.

The JobMaker hiring credit will support around 450,000 positions for young Australians and will cost about $4 billion. Each additional employee aged 16 to 29 years of age will attract a credit of $200 a week for their employer. It will be $100 a week for workers who are aged 30 to 35. Contrary to contributions by other senators in this chamber, including Senator Waters, who spoke prior to me, there will be a range of safeguard mechanisms in place, both in this legislation, in the subsequent regulations to be issued by the Treasurer and in the protections that exist under the Fair Work Act through the Fair Work Commission, that will ensure that this money goes only to the creation of new jobs, and that existing workers will not be disadvantaged or displaced in any way by this scheme. There is no reason to think that they will be, because many employers are in fact reporting difficulty in finding appropriate workers and a desire to add to their employment numbers, as indeed they will be required to do under this legislation. In order to receive a benefit, they will have to demonstrate a net increase in employment. So there's no reason to think that those fears will be realised but, just in case, the government will of course be putting in place very strong safeguards to ensure that doesn't happen.

To briefly recap: the JobMaker hiring credit is one really important part of the Treasurer's plan, set out in the budget a month ago, to get Australia to build back better after this crisis, to bounce back as quickly as possible and to return to the strong and prosperous economy we had enjoyed before this unanticipated crisis hit from overseas. It was unfortunately unavoidable that Australia, along with every other country in the world, would suffer some form of recession as a result of this crisis and the measures we had to put in place to safeguard Australians' health. However, we can make sure that on the other side we get back to that level of prosperity and security for Australians by giving them not only the economic benefits of work but also the associated social benefits of work and the dignity of work.

Stirling Griff (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have spent some time listening to speeches in this place and the other place on this bill, the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020. I appreciate the concerns that have been raised and the many difficulties that people are experiencing in this COVID recession. I also recognise the struggle that older workers face in trying to secure employment in your 50s and 60s, and the sense that employers just aren't willing to give you a chance. I recognise the stress for unemployed workers with young families, who aren't sure if they will be able to make ends meet or if they'll be able to meet the next mortgage payment. I appreciate the worry and despair that people are feeling, and how dispirited they must feel, particularly when they send off dozens of job applications and do not receive a single response. So I get why people want to remove the age rules for this JobMaker program and why they want to provide more support for unemployed workers. I know they have the best of intentions, and I would enthusiastically support a bill that permanently raised the JobKeeper rate and that expanded coverage to all unemployed workers or that provided genuine employment support services.

But I also know we have a particular problem with youth unemployment in this country. It's not a new problem. For decades now, unemployment rates for young people, if you look at the stats, are double—in fact, often triple—those for other workers. The underemployment figures are even worse. And that was before COVID struck. Which workers have been hardest hit by the COVID recession? Typically, it's those who work in shops, restaurants, cafes and hotels. It is people who are already in precarious jobs, working in the gig economy, and casuals who depend on shiftwork to get by. In other words, the workers who have been hardest hit by COVID are young people who are already struggling. For middle-aged workers, the unemployment rate is about five per cent. For young workers, the rate is a staggering 17 per cent—17 per cent. We must do something about this.

Research shows that young people who become unemployed in a recession struggle for years or decades afterwards. They struggle to find jobs. Those who do find jobs earn less, and then they are more likely to lose their jobs than other workers. The effect on a young person is profound. It damages their career prospects, their earnings, their ability to buy a home and their ability to raise a family. For them, it's a long-term obstacle to living the lives they want to lead. So I support investing in those young people and trying to do something that could help deal with youth unemployment in the recession.

JobMaker might not do much to create economic recovery; that's not its purpose. But I believe it can help once the recovery begins. Employers, especially small businesses, are always reluctant to take on staff. You're not just paying someone to do a job for you; you're also taking on responsibility for their livelihoods—responsibility for them being able to make mortgage payments, put food on the table and pay school fees. Sometimes the weight of that burden is so great that you put off hiring someone new until you're absolutely sure the demand is there. The JobMaker credit will help those employers who see their businesses growing and know they need someone. It will help to overcome their reluctance and create jobs today that would not otherwise be there. That will give young workers a chance—a chance at a job, a chance to prove themselves, a chance to escape the long-term damage the recession has done to their lives.

Centre Alliance will be supporting this bill, and I hope that many small businesses in my home state of South Australia will take advantage of it and give a young worker a chance.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise today and speak in support of the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020. This bill before the Senate today is an important part of the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic. It is part of a record-breaking contribution in this year's federal budget to getting Australia back to work and getting Australians back into work. It builds on the massive support which the Morrison government has been providing to help Australians and Australian businesses through the COVID-19 crisis since earlier this year—critical measures such as JobKeeper, which has been credited with keeping so many businesses alive and so many people in work over the last six months.

Australia is now well underway in its recovery plan. With Victoria joining the rest of the country in getting on top of outbreaks, we are all moving firmly forward and looking to rebuild our economy and restore the jobs that were lost during the worst of the pandemic lockdowns. In my own state of Tasmania we have recently gone to another stage in our recovery phase. Last Friday the state reopened its borders, allowing quarantine-free access to residents from New South Wales, who join all other Australian jurisdictions, apart from Victoria, in now being able to come to Tasmania for a holiday or to visit friends and family. In the very near future Victorians will also be able to return to Tasmania, and I know I speak on behalf of many Tasmanians when I say just how much we are looking forward to welcoming our Victorian friends back home.

It was a fantastic show of support for Tasmania that among the first New South Wales visitors when borders reopened was our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, who visited the south of the state over the weekend. While he was in Hobart the Prime Minister caught up with Rob Pennicott, from Pennicott Wilderness Journeys—one of Tasmania's many wonderful tourism and hospitality businesses. Rob's feedback on JobKeeper to the PM was similar to that which I've heard from so many businesses across Tasmania: JobKeeper literally saved his business. And it saved many businesses like it—businesses which, through no fault of their own, found themselves with almost no income, because nobody was able to get out and about and spend money. Stories like this demonstrate the importance of the actions that the Morrison government has taken to protect businesses and jobs.

Over the last eight months, my focus in Tasmania has been on my Tasmania Back In Business campaign. Through this I have talked to many, many businesses around the state, and there has always been a level of cautious optimism that they can and will get back on track. They knew that they would need a bit of a hand to do so, and that is exactly what we have provided with this budget and exactly what we are providing with this bill today.

As part of my Tasmania Back in Business campaign I spoke to business and industry all across the state and sat down with chambers of commerce, farmers, growers, local government and everyday Tasmanians from all walks of life to understand their ideas to get businesses back up and running and local people back into work. There were a number of consistent themes which kept coming up in these discussions, and many of the businesses I spoke to highlighted the need to create more jobs for Tasmanians. They want young people to get an apprenticeship or traineeship and to get quality skills and training which set them up for a life of employment. They want local businesses to be supported by reducing tax and making it easier to employ locals. I am incredibly pleased that the Treasurer, when he delivered the 2020 budget early last month, delivered on all of these themes. As a government we have implemented a new extended asset write-off. We have extended JobKeeper for those businesses still doing it really tough. We are helping businesses to hire apprentices and trainees, and we have created the JobMaker hiring credit that this bill relates to.

The Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020 facilitates the JobMaker hiring credit scheme announced by the government as part of the 2020-21 budget. This bill will provide a significant boost to employment opportunities for young Australians who have been adversely affected by the crushing economic impact of coronavirus. The JobMaker hiring credit will support around 450,000 positions for young Australians around the nation, including those in my home state of Tasmania. We know that when economic times are tough young workers are often the first impacted and the hardest hit.

It's so important that we take swift and decisive action to get young people straight back into the workforce so they can continue to build a career and the work skills which will hold them in good stead for the next 30 or 40 years of their life. At a cost of $4 billion from 2020-21 to 2022-23, the JobMaker hiring credit is a significant investment in our young people by supporting new employment. Under the scheme, eligible employers will be able to claim $200 a week for each additional eligible employee they hire aged 16 to 29 years old and $100 a week for each additional eligible employee aged 30 to 35 years old.

Importantly, this initiative is not limited to a single sector and is open to businesses in the tourism, hospitality, building and construction, and other sectors to employ the people they need to grow their businesses. Eligible employees must have worked an average of at least 20 hours per week over the quarter for the employer to qualify for the payment. I want to encourage those businesses who are able and willing to take on new employees to check out the information regarding eligibility on the ATO website and help get a young person into work.

I am pleased to say that the Tasmanian businesses I have spoken to since the budget was delivered have all welcomed this initiative and are now looking at employing locals to fill additional positions. The 2020 budget is focused on job creation, rebuilding the economy and securing Australia's future, and the JobMaker hiring credit is just one of the initiatives developed to assist with our nation's economic recovery.

The Morrison government has also provided an additional $1.2 billion commitment to create 100,000 new apprenticeships and traineeships to further boost training and employment opportunities for young Australians. Our $1.3 billion modern manufacturing plan will target key national manufacturing priorities, like food and beverages, resources, technology, critical minerals processing, medical product recycling and clean energy. There's investment in major infrastructure projects, like the new Sorell and Midway Point causeways in southern Tasmania. By partnering with local governments to work on local roads and community infrastructure, we will stimulate the economy and create jobs.

This budget makes the tax system fairer for businesses that have done it particularly tough because of COVID and rewards them for any investments in new assets that they are able to make. That means more money back into those businesses, which enables them to employ more staff. Of course all of these measures are in addition to the huge commitments we have made through JobKeeper and by increasing the rate of JobSeeker during the COVID-19 crisis.

When the COVID-19 crisis first hit and businesses were shutting down and people were out of work, one of my first concerns was for young Australians and particularly young Tasmanians. As I said in my maiden speech in this place, the reason I wanted to become a senator for Tasmania was so I could fight for local job opportunities for young Tasmanians. I have spoken many times in this place about how fortunate I consider myself that I was able to grow up, get my education, start my career and continue my career in Tasmania before I was elected to this place. But most people my age have not been so fortunate. Many have felt they have had to go to the mainland for opportunities. When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, my initial thought was that we can't go backwards. We in Tasmania cannot go back to those dark old days of the eighties and early nineties when most Tasmanians felt they had to leave our beautiful island state for job opportunities. They should be able to have those opportunities at home. They should be able to build their lives in Tasmania.

I am very pleased today to see the Morrison coalition government making such a firm commitment to the future of not just young Tasmanians but young Australians with the bill that we are discussing here in the Senate. The Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020 is a continuation of the Morrison government's significant support to help Australia continue on our path to recovery following the COVID-19 economic crisis, and I commend the bill to the Senate.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on what should have been the most consequential measure for working people in this country since the pandemic hit and since the JobKeeper wage subsidy was passed in this parliament. I say that this should have been consequential because, in actual fact, it has been anything but. The Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020 is, instead, a massive wasted opportunity. It is a wasted opportunity for the unemployed, the underemployed and the small and medium-sized businesses that drive our economy. What Australians need right now is a well-designed job subsidy, a subsidy that will support the transition to the post-COVID economy, a subsidy that recognises that the recession we are in will not be over soon and so many of the jobs that were there before COVID are not coming back. The problem is that the JobMaker hiring credit is not that subsidy. What the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and the Treasurer have brought to this parliament is not JobMaker—it's job replacer, job churner and job destroyer. One of the most concerning aspects of this bill, as we have seen before by this government, is that we know from experience with JobKeeper that public money will be misspent if there are not safeguards put in place.

The Australian public support protecting jobs and businesses through the pandemic. But they have a right to know how their money is being spent, and the record with JobKeeper is not encouraging. Let me give you one important example of the misuse of public funds that brought ordinary workers to this parliament today. Aviation workers today rallied outside Parliament House to call for an inquiry into the future of aviation in this country post-COVID. They were also protesting against the fact that over half a billion dollars in JobKeeper wage subsidies were paid to Qantas, only for this company to turn around and outsource 2,500 ground crew so they could fill these jobs for less money using labour hire companies and contractors. Think about it. Taxpayers gave hundreds of millions of dollars to Alan Joyce to keep Qantas workers connected to their jobs—and he banked the money, only to tell the families of 2,500 of his loyal employees that they were no longer connected to their jobs and if they wanted these jobs back they would have to bid for them at the lower rate. We've seen companies that take JobKeeper funds and pay huge dividends to their shareholders, and there was a parade of companies that took JobKeeper money, only to then pay their executives massive bonuses. If the government has learnt lessons from JobKeeper, it will make sure that this kind of abuse of public money and public trust cannot happen again.

Before we go into the flaws of the JobMaker scheme, let's back up to earlier in this tumultuous year. Let's go back to March 2020. This is when the coalition announced that they would be introducing a coronavirus supplement that would double the rate of the below-poverty JobSeeker allowance. They did this because they didn't initially want to introduce a wage subsidy. The United Kingdom, New Zealand and countries in Europe were rolling out wage subsidies as COVID hit. In Australia, Labor was calling on the government to introduce a wage subsidy. The union movement was pushing for a wage subsidy. Economists were pushing for a wage subsidy. We all agreed that the most important thing the government could do was to keep the connection between workers and their employers. But this government thought, 'Let's throw them all out on the Centrelink queues.'

It wasn't until they saw how long those Centrelink queues were, in the first few days—and then the Centrelink IT system crashed—when employers across Australia took their cues from the government that their businesses would get no support, that they started sacking their staff in the thousands. It wasn't until they were watching the queues grow before their eyes on TV that this transactional government decided it was in their own interest to legislate a wage subsidy. So JobKeeper was announced.

Labor did the right thing and supported JobKeeper, even though its flaws were enormous. We're appalled, and we still are, that a whole swathe of the economy was excluded from JobKeeper: casual workers, gig and contract workers, university workers, arts and the entertainment industry, airport workers, particularly those workers at dnata, and workers here on temporary visas. All of them are Australian taxpayers. All of them are critical to our economy. Many of them have partners and children to support, an economy to support.

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senator Sheldon. You will be in continuation when the debate resumes.