Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Gallagher today relating to impacts of Covid-19 on the economy

I will raise some points about the labour force figures. I think everyone in this place today knew, when those figure figures were released, they were completely devastating and a real sobering message to all of us here about the devastating impact that COVID-19 is having on our economy and our society. Whilst these figures are released as numbers, every number has a story behind it: every person, their family, and the pressure that comes with losing a job so suddenly and not being able to find another job in the times that we are currently living. These are also figures I don't think any of us ever expected we would see: 600,000 people losing their jobs in a month; one out of every five Australian workers either losing their job or having less work; and the effect on young people, with youth unemployment jumping 2.2 percentage points, the largest monthly increase on record. These are staggering numbers.

I think it really highlights for me the importance of getting the economic recovery right and of the government considering these numbers and the people that sit behind them. That's why my question today went to giving the government the opportunity to reconsider some of the decisions they've taken. We accept that JobKeeper and jobseeker were put together in an urgent way to address and, in a sense, align with the restrictions that were urgently being put in place to flatten the health curve. That was done in a matter of days.

We have also consistently, over the past couple of months, raised issues around eligibility, particularly where we think that the government could have allowed more into the JobKeeper scheme, in particular, where some of the eligibility criteria have been unfair. A young person who has a part-time job, and has had that part-time job for a couple of years, might have gone from earning $200 a week to all of a sudden earning $750. Whereas someone who, merely by length of service—11 months, 10 months or eight months—but with significant dependants and other costs, is denied access to JobKeeper on those grounds alone. We think there are some inconsistencies, and the government could have used this time to get it right. And we still think that's the case. We believe the shorter the unemployment queue is, even at the peak of this economic crisis, the better it will be in the long run—to keep people off the unemployment queue. It would be interesting to know whether the government had advice from Treasury about whether if they'd gone bigger, if they'd gone earlier, if they'd allowed eligibility for casuals, for uni staff, for casual teachers, fewer people would be reflected in these figures today. There are 500,000 people who have left the labour market entirely. They are not looking for work anymore and they are not in a job. They aren't reflected in the official headline results. They are gone. And we know where they've gone. They've gone onto jobseeker because they weren't able to keep their employment relationship going. That's what we have concerns about.

We know that the recovery out of this will be longer and harder. It will be different across particular industries disproportionally affected by the restrictions that are being put in place. This is the issue that we have been urging the government to rethink. Today's numbers, gave the government the opportunity to look at this and see how many more people they could get out of unemployment and back into some connection with their jobs.

This is something we continue to press because the big decisions that were taken urgently—the time that we have now to reflect and to understand some of the statistics will determine the recovery out of this. When you look at the underemployment rate and the youth unemployment rate, we can already see the disproportionate impact on young people. They will be out of the labour market; the ones who have just entered will be forced back; the ones who want to be able to get into it probably won't be able to. And, however long it takes to recover, they will carry these years with them for the rest of their lives. So we would urge the government to keep its mind open and consider changes where they are sensible to be made.