Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I'm certain that if the government had said, 'We are going to spray this money around to companies whose profits will not only increase along the usual lines but actually grow'—companies like those the member for Kingsford Smith just mentioned—the Australian people would not have signed up to it. All we're saying is that, if the government hadn't wasted so much money on companies that didn't need JobKeeper, they would now be able to afford to do the right thing by the workers and small businesses that still need government support. I think that is an entirely reasonable point for us to make.

I've spent a lot of time in recent days in Cairns, Launceston and other parts of Australia that are doing it a little bit tougher than the rest of the country. They are told by this government that there's no room and no blank cheque to support people's jobs in areas where things are still difficult; there's no extra money for that. This is at the same time—as we now know from the story in the paper and from the work of the member for Fenner, the member for Kingsford Smith, the member for Whitlam and others—as a lot of money has been wasted on companies that didn't need it.

This is what that says about this government. This is a government that subsidises the strong and singles out and sacrifices the weak, and that's what we're seeing in JobKeeper. If you are a company which is already profitable, if you are a company which wants to pay, in some cases, exorbitant executive bonuses, then the government will throw money at you. If you are a small business in Cairns or Launceston or somewhere else and you're reliant on the opening of the international border, on the end of social distancing or on the government getting out the four million vaccines they promised by the end of this month, then you are being deliberately singled out and sacrificed. You're being left behind by a government which subsidises the strong and singles out and sacrifices the weak.

We're talking about these appropriation bills, these budget bills. We have a massive amount of spending, with more than $1 trillion in debt, at the same time as we've still got those two million unemployed and underemployed. The reason for that is that we are not getting the bang for buck that we need from such massive government spending. On this side of the House, we understand the need for government to spend in difficult times. We've done it before and we've understood that. We've been remarkably consistent for all of the 20 or so years that I've been knocking around this place, in different roles. We've been very consistent. The government, on the other hand, says that $200 billion is a debt and deficit disaster but more than $1 trillion is manageable. All we ask is that we get genuine bang for buck from all of this money that the government is borrowing.

The Treasurer has repeatedly said something I agree with wholeheartedly. He has pointed out time and time again that every dollar is borrowed. He usually says that as a justification for not doing the right thing by the small businesses of Cairns, for example, but it is true that every dollar is borrowed. Every dollar for sports rorts has been borrowed. Every dollar for dodgy land deals has been borrowed. Every dollar spent on taxpayer funded executive bonuses has been borrowed. Every dollar that has gone to businesses that turned out to be extraordinarily profitable during the pandemic was borrowed too. Every one of those billion dollars they spent on advertising themselves has been borrowed. Every one of those dollars they spent on market research has been borrowed. This is a good point that the Treasurer makes. We do need to remember that, when the budget is in the condition that it is in right now, we should be extremely focused on getting bang for buck. There would not be an independent observer of this budget anywhere in this country who would look at the budget and think that that money is better spent on companies that are already profitable rather than on companies that still need a little bit of help.

At the end of this month—not far away now; less than two weeks—JobKeeper will be cut. Again the government says there's no blank cheque. There seems to have been a blank cheque when they were buying land around the airport, but there's no blank cheque to continue to support people. Imagine if we had a government that had the competence but also the compassion to say, 'We would be better off spending these hundreds of millions of dollars on businesses that genuinely need it and their workers rather than businesses that by any measure have not needed it and executives who by any measure have not needed extra assistance or extra executive bonuses.'

It remains to be seen what the impact of the cutting of JobKeeper will be on the jobs market. Treasury says about 100,000 jobs could be lost, Commonwealth Bank says 110,000, and respected labour market economist Jeff Borland says 250,000. We don't know. We genuinely hope that the number will be nowhere near as big as that, but it remains to be seen. As the member for Monash, my colleague Mr Broadbent, has said in this place during the week, one job lost to cuts to JobKeeper is one too many.

We have said repeatedly that the future of JobKeeper, the future of a million workers on the payment, the future of those most at risk of losing their jobs, is in the government's hands. That means that any jobs lost from JobKeeper cuts will be on their heads. It's not too late for the government to come forward and say: 'You know what? We shouldn't have sprayed all this money around on companies which were already strong, and we should do a little bit more for a little bit longer for those small businesses who are doing it tough.' As I said before, it's a government which subsidises the strong and sacrifices the weak. That's what we're seeing. So, in a couple of weeks time, unfortunately, when that JobKeeper payment is cut, we will learn who has been left behind. We have learnt which Australian workers and small businesses have been especially vulnerable.

It would be one thing if the government had met its other commitments, such as getting four million vaccinations away by the end of the month—as we're reminded by others, they're almost four million short of their four million target in March. Remember, they had those two commitments next to each other. They said at the end of March they would cut JobKeeper and have four million vaccinations away. I notice they've stuck firmly to their announcement that they'd be cutting something for workers and businesses. The commitment that fell by the wayside—that big, yawning gulf between announcement and delivery that exists on that side of the parliament—is that vaccination commitment. What that means is that companies may have taken the government at their word that they were going to get all these vaccinations away and thought: 'We'll just hang in until the end of March. A big chunk of the Australian population will be vaccinated by then because the Prime Minister said they would be.' But they're now having to confront the JobKeeper cuts without the vaccinations out there. It's a government that's very quick to cut economic support but very slow to meet its commitments on vaccination.

We've heard again and again—and I agree with the Treasurer on this point too—that the rollout of the vaccine will have big economic consequences. When the government was making these big promises about October and about four million by the end of March, they were saying at the time that there would be this big economic dividend from doing things that quickly. So there must be an economic consequence for doing things so slowly. So let's hear what that is. Let's hear what this consequences of the JobKeeper cuts will be. Let's hear what the consequences are of going slow on the vaccine and bumbling the rollout of the vaccine. Even though we have some Australians returning to work in this recovery, too many are being left out and left behind, too many have been deliberately left in the lurch, too many are subject to the bumbling of the vaccine. We owe it to the Australian people, who have done so much to get through this together, to do what we can to support their employment for a little bit longer.

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