Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister, and I refer to his previous answer. How can the Prime Minister—who delivered $13 billion of JobKeeper payments to businesses whose earnings went up, not down, during the pandemic; engineered massive rorting of taxpayer funds through sports rorts and carpark rorts; and thinks paying $30 million for airport land worth $3 million is okay—talk about waste with a straight face?

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a low point in this parliament when the Labor Party believes that the policy and the program called JobKeeper was a waste of money, because it saved the nation. It saved the nation, because the Reserve Bank—

Dr Chalmers interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Rankin will leave under standing order 94(a).

The member for Rankin then left the chamber.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The IQ of the chamber just went up.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Treasurer will withdraw—

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw, Mr Speaker.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and he will stick to his answer.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Reserve Bank of Australia said that 700,000 jobs, at least, were saved by JobKeeper. We know that more than three million Australians benefited, we know that it helped see the unemployment rate fall to a 10-year low of 4.9 per cent—a 10-year low of 4.9 per cent—and we know that it helped see the Australian economy rebound faster and stronger than any other advanced economy across the world. That is what JobKeeper helped to deliver. I refer the honourable member to the Treasury's own review of the program in June, when it said:

It has been well targeted: the payment went to businesses that experienced an average decline in turnover in April of 37 per cent against the same month a year previous … and it went to businesses at which the job separation rate had doubled following the introduction of operating restrictions just before JobKeeper was introduced …

I point out that the independent ANAO referred to the JobKeeper program and said the following:

The ATO has been effective in managing risks related to the rapid implementation of COVID-19 economic response measures.

So there you have it. It's a program that helped save at least 700,000 jobs, supported more than three million Australians and helped see a very strong economic rebound in our labour market and in terms of economic growth—and the ATO has been praised by the ANAO for its implementation—and the Labor Party has the gall to call that program a 'waste'. You tell that to more than 3½ million Australians who know that JobKeeper not only helped save their business but saved their job.