Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to questions without notice asked by Senators Walsh and Sheldon today relating to the JobKeeper payment.

The minister's answers showed little sympathy for the workers who those opposite have failed to protect throughout this crisis. When the Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, announced JobKeeper, the Treasurer, Mr Frydenberg, said, 'Australians know that their government has their back.' Well, many Australians now know that the government doesn't have their back. Instead, this government has abandoned millions of Australian workers, with the design of the JobKeeper scheme throwing them on the scrapheap.

The government has already rejected Labor's proposal to include casuals who have been employed for less than 12 months. We've heard that workers like Darcy, mentioned in Senator Walsh's question to Senator Cormann, have been in their current jobs for 15 years. Yet Darcy himself is ineligible for JobKeeper, because he's been with his current employer for less than 12 months. Darcy is just one of 1.1 million casuals who have missed out on JobKeeper because the government refuses to support them.

We heard the minister make a little, petty political dig at Premier Andrews—that Premier Andrews should just open up hospitality, and he should do it now. If that's the case, Minister, why can't parliament sit now? Why are we not sitting after tomorrow? That's a good question to ask you. Do you really think the premiers should ignore the health advice they are given by their health officials?

Labor has urged the government to improve support for charities, to help workers in the arts and to extend the JobKeeper payment to people on temporary visas. When the scheme was debated in parliament, every one of Labor's amendments was rejected. If the current exclusions aren't bad enough, on 1 May, with the stroke of a pen, this government cancelled the JobKeeper scheme for thousands of workers and companies like Dnata. At Dnata, 5,500 workers had been assured by the company's management that they would be covered. Now they've been told that the government changed the rules without any warning. The same exclusion that affected Dnata workers has also impacted hundreds of workers in hotel chains.

JobKeeper was put in place to support workers in affected businesses. It was supposed to help them retain their jobs during this uncertain time. Whatever happened to the message 'we're all in this together'? If we're all in this together, let me tell you: the Morrison government have just ignored that message. They've just been abandoning millions of workers.

Since the federal government has shut down just about all aviation operations over the last few months, Dnata has had no choice but to stand down workers. But they did so on the understanding that they could collect JobKeeper payments for those workers. Those workers have been relying on JobKeeper payments to help with their rent and their mortgages and to buy groceries for their kids and medications for their kids. I heard Senator Sheldon speaking about it yesterday. He gave an example of a young woman who can't afford medication for her child. This government just put their heads down and ignore that, and say it's not their responsibility. Well, it is their responsibility.

Dnata staff have been told to join Centrelink's queues, knowing that their employment and thousands of their co-workers' jobs are in jeopardy, all because of a nice little loophole the government's dreamt up. It's been all right for these workers to pay their taxes here; many of these workers have worked for Dnata for many, many years—15 to 20 years—and paid their taxes. But all of a sudden the government has said: 'Sorry, we've found this little loophole'—one would presume it's to save money for the government—'so you're all going to miss out. We don't really care about you.'

As I said, Dnata employs about 5,500 people in Australia. They're the people you don't actually see at the airport; if you're sitting next to a window on the lighting side of the plane, you might see them. They're the people who do catering, ground and ramp work. Their staff live right throughout Australia, all in different electorates. In the last six weeks they have faced devastating uncertainty about their jobs and their industry. They've been stripped of shifts and then stood down. They had been told that they would be able to access JobKeeper, but then, after this most recent change, told to go and join the Centrelink queues.

Many Dnata staff have not been paid for extended periods of time, because of the conflicting government advice. They have families. They have people who rely on them. They can't pay their mortgages, rent or other bills, but, as I said, it's okay for them to have been paying tax for many, many years. The government has to overturn this unfair decision. JobKeeper was supposed to apply to all workers to help keep them employed— (Time expired)