Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister and the Liberals now preside over the biggest blunder in Australia's history, the $60 billion JobKeeper blunder, the first recession in decades, record debts and hundreds of thousands of Australians unemployed or left behind, and they don't have a comprehensive plan to get us out of it. In fact, with the only plan they have had, really—the JobKeeper plan—the member for Farrer appeared to call it a 'handout' in question time today. That's the attitude that this government has towards supporting people to get through this recession.

The Grattan Institute recently analysed job losses. My electorate of Dunkley was estimated to have lost 7.9 per cent of jobs since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is the third worst hit electorate in Victoria, after Wannon and Mallee. We need a plan. Yet the JobKeeper wage subsidy isn't reaching all of the people in my electorate who need it. There are the casuals. There are the local government employees at PARC, for whom we've been fighting week after week after week, and the Treasurer says, 'Just go and lobby someone else; I'm not interested in helping them.' There are the employees at Monash University's Peninsula Campus. They are not covered by JobKeeper, and it's not good enough. The governor of the Reserve Bank has warned the federal government that the JobKeeper Program may need to be kept going beyond September to avoid the Australian economy falling off a cliff.

There is not a comprehensive plan for the recovery. Too many Australians are going to be left out when the Prime Minister tries to enact his snapback. Do you know who most of those Australians are going to be? It's women—who, apparently, are the essential workers at the frontline: childcare workers, hospitality workers, retail workers and those supermarket workers that the speaker before me mentioned. Women have been hardest hit during this pandemic. We don't care about them, apparently—that's from the government. The Minister representing the Minister for Women, in answering a question in question time today about how great this government has apparently been for women, called JobKeeper a 'handout'. That's their comprehensive plan to get us out of this recession, but 325,000 women have lost their jobs during the pandemic. Half of all JobKeeper payments are going to female workers. Where's the plan for women? Payroll jobs for women declined by eight per cent, while male payroll jobs rose by 6.3 per cent.

Where's the plan for young people? Payroll jobs worked in by people under 20 decreased by 16½ per cent. Job losses have been concentrated in sectors with high concentrations of workers excluded from JobKeeper. One in three hospitality jobs have been lost. One in four arts and recreation sector jobs are gone. That is not a comprehensive plan for the future or to get us out of this and recover.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister was reported as saying that one of the ways to recovery is a modernisation of how Australia approaches the economy. They would be nice words if they weren't followed by, 'The plan for modernisation is simply deregulation.' How about an actual plan for modernisation of Australia's economy? Take the once in a lifetime chance. Have a triple bottom line accounting method. Let's have a look, actually, at every single policy for the future having an economic benefit, an environmental benefit and some social capital benefit. 'No. Let's just have deregulation.' Let's have an economy for the future that supports people, that protects the environment, that builds new jobs in new manufacturing areas and that supports women, rather than just cutting everyone off at the knees with JobKeeper in September.

My electorate has been so hard hit by job losses. Where's our investment? Where's our investment in our roads?

Where's bringing forward some Black Spot funding when we need it? Where's the business case for the electrification of the train line to Baxter? Where's the commitment to support the arts and the sports and the cultural hubs we have in Dunkley? We actually need a comprehensive plan to support people, to support institutions, and to grow our economy and leave no-one behind.

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