Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

What the Australian government has done, together with the New South Wales government, is delivering support to businesses in New South Wales that is urgently needed as they work through this pandemic. We've been working closely with the New South Wales government to achieve that, and I'm very pleased that we were able to come to those arrangements not just on one occasion but to upgrade those arrangements, with the work that was done between the Treasurer and I and the Premier of New South Wales and the New South Wales Treasurer. What matters is that we get this support to those people who need it. I've just mentioned the significant support that has been provided through the COVID disaster assistance payment in New South Wales that has resulted in $1.7 billion of support going to people who have lost more than eight hours—not just more than 20 hours but more than eight hours—including those who are on benefit payments, which was the last issue of improvement that we made to those COVID disaster payments after we were working together with the New South Wales government. Increasingly, as the New South Wales government ensures that those payments are being made to New South Wales businesses, that's going to help them come through this current lockdown and be able to get to the other side.

One thing I know—and I know it because we saw it last year when we came back from the COVID-19 recession, when we got to the point where we were able to graduate the Australian economy off JobKeeper, and I remember those opposite a-hopin' and a-prayin' that 100,000 people would still be out of a job, and they were proved wrong, and those results did not happen as they were trying to doomingly project—

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