Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am hearing a lot of support on this side of the House! But, in all seriousness, in Macnamara there are some of the hardest hit areas in the economy in the country. Elwood is the hardest hit suburb in Victoria. St Kilda, St Kilda East, Elsternwick, Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, Southbank and Windsor are some of the hardest hit suburbs in the country because they are filled with casual workers. They are filled with people who work in hospitality, in retail and especially in our arts and entertainment industry, which is absolutely doing it extremely tough in this very difficult time. Sadly, many people in my electorate have been left behind by the Morrison government—left behind by this government that is all spin and no action, that doesn't have a plan to get our economy moving.

This Prime Minister is very good on announcements but not so good on the follow-through. The government are happy to just sit there and watch industries fade away. They're happy sitting and watching the arts and entertainment industry fade away, just like they were happy to sit there and watch the car industry fade away to go offshore. I remember the Treasurer at the time stood in this place, goading the car industry to leave, and that is exactly what happened. And jobs in my electorate, in Port Melbourne, disappeared when that government didn't stand by the workers in this country, and we are seeing that once again.

At the moment, one of the key things we need in this economy is certainty. The Prime Minister himself promised that the JobKeeper supplement would be here at least until September. Well, it didn't take long for that promise to be broken. After only four days the Prime Minister took the JobKeeper payment away from some of the most underpaid and hardest working people in the economy in our childcare workers. They have done a stoic job, our childcare workers, and what did the Prime Minister do? He ripped the certainty away after only four days. But it's not surprising, because there has been a growing number of members on that side of the House who have been desperate to take away the support measures that we have been calling for for months. And I can quote. David Crowe of a Nine newspaper reported on 11 May:

Liberal MPs are calling for a pathway out of the mammoth job assistance programs that are supporting more than 5 million workers …

Those numbers have been revised subsequently.

"The longer we wait the harder it's going to get, and the more damage it's going to do to the economy," said one Liberal MP.

The member for Mackellar, not usually one for bright ideas, came out and said that JobKeeper should be cut off as soon as possible.

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