Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is cutting the coronavirus supplement for more than 7½ thousand Australians on JobSeeker in my electorate of Lyons. Why did the Prime Minister say, 'We cannot allow the lifeline that has been extended to now hold Australia back'? Doesn't he realise that in Tasmania people want to work, but there simply are not enough jobs?

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

I thank the member for Lyons for his question. I was in Tasmania on the weekend and I was pleased to see how the recovery has begun. The comeback in Tasmania is underway as that economy starts to move forward. In Tasmania they raised two particular issues with me. One was that they are needing more workers in Tasmania. They don't just need more workers in the tourism and hospitality sectors but they particularly need additional workers in the regional parts of the country where they struggle every year to get workers on the orchards and in the other critical industries that drive the Tasmanian economy. That is normally done with a great deal of assistance from the backpacker market that comes in and supports those industries. But under COVID there is a real problem as a result of not being able to access those workers. That's why the government put in place a $6,000 relocation allowance. Whether they be people who are living in the member's electorate or people further down south towards Hobart, if they wish to go and travel to another part of Tasmania to take up those jobs, there's $6,000 there to support them.

Our response to the COVID-19 recession is not to have policies that keep people on welfare but to have policies that get them into jobs and support the businesses and the investments that they want to make. In particular, the JobMaker hiring credit, which is going through this place this week, is about getting people who have been on JobSeeker payments and putting them into jobs. The best form of income support anyone can have is a job in the real economy. That's where we see the future. We may differ from the Labor Party about that. They may see the future of Australia under COVID-19 being weighed down, but we're not going to be. Australians won't be. Businesses are wanting to invest again. Businesses are wanting to move forward again. Businesses are wanting to hire again. We will support them in that exercise because, whether it's in Tasmania, whether it's in the Northern Territory, whether it's in Western Australia, Victoria or anywhere else, we know Australians want to work. We are going to continue to ensure that they get every opportunity to do so.