Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) Share this | Hansard source

Labor's approach to the COVID crisis has been to put the national interest very clearly first. We have firmly acknowledged from the outset that we are in a health crisis and an economic crisis. So when those opposite interject and say, 'What have you done?' we have very clearly put out the calls for what we think is in the best interest of our nation and we have worked with this government as best we can. That is, I must say, having been there back in 2008, the polar opposite of their conduct back during the global financial crisis. I find it just an incredulous statement that when we have this government refusing, day after day, to take responsibility for this nation's current debt levels they signal it as some kind of virtue while they finger point back in time—at the same time as trying to trump up their credentials for stimulating the economy in this current economic crisis.

We have not been obstructive; we've been playing a constructive role in helping the government make genuine improvement to its response to the crisis. I know that the Greens motion this afternoon expressed their own intent in that regard. The government has sometimes listened and sometimes it has not. It has not listened to us, and others in the community, when we have alerted the government to those who are very much being left behind in this crisis. In some cases, the government has not really had its ear to the ground in terms of the way people have been affected, and those people missing out have been accidental; but in many cases it has been absolutely deliberate. We've given the opportunity to this government to fix these problems, like JobKeeper, where the bill that we passed in this place has the flexibility for this government to step up and do its job properly—to get in and help those Australians who desperately need its support now.

This government's very delayed response to the outbreak needlessly pushed many Australians out of jobs and into the unprecedented and lengthy queues that we've seen outside Centrelink offices right around the country. Indeed, there have been overloaded call centres, and this has been a very distressing experience for many. Some of those workers have now come back onto JobKeeper and they might now be in the insidious situation of having to work out how they go about paying back their jobseeker payments. But too many Australian workers have been left out. Too many have been found ineligible for JobKeeper, and this government has absolutely failed to support them.

The Greens have pointed out their view on who is being left behind in their motion this afternoon. This government is failing to support those people. It has had the opportunity to support the 5½ thousand aviation workers at dnata and it has not. These are Australian workers who are supporting other Australian industries but who, because of the ownership structure, the government hasn't supported. The government has chosen to support Rex Airlines, a foreign-owned airline, with a big injection of cash to keep them flying, but it has refused to do the same for Virgin. Virgin is critically important to regional routes in my home state of Western Australia. The workers at dnata are just like any other workers: they're paying their taxes, they're supporting their families, they're trying to pay their mortgages and they're trying to pay their bills. I have spoken to dnata workers in Western Australia about their distress. The government has had every opportunity to fix this—to extend support to them—but it has rejected these calls. Marion Harris from Cabin Services Australia has said:

But please, we're forgotten workers. Look at the people behind me. Look at the thousands across Australia. There are so many airport workers, essential workers. I'm on the front line.

I ask: why won't the government help these forgotten workers—these Australian workers who are being left behind?

There are 1.1 million casual workers who are missing out. They missed out on JobKeeper and, in many instances, if they didn't qualify for JobKeeper—the government hasn't given them access to JobKeeper, because it has deemed they haven't been in their current employment for long enough—then the government has said, 'Okay, go onto jobseeker. 'As I said, jobseeker isn't available to everyone. If you have a working spouse, you're not eligible for either JobKeeper or jobseeker if you are above the income payment thresholds for jobseeker payments. This is incredibly difficult, because the fact is that it is largely women who have lost these jobs and it puts them in the situation in that household where it's their superannuation account that's no longer being topped up and it's their family budget that now has to deal with full fee payments for child care re-emerging in a few weeks time.

The Prime Minister thinks we're going to have a snapback in the economy. There are a few things we absolutely cannot snap back to. We cannot snap back to jobseekers living on $40 a day. The number of people on the jobseeker payment is currently 200,000 more than the government planned—and I note that the government expects this to grow to 1.7 million people by September. So, when you want to snap back, you've really got to recognise that this unemployment benefit is absolutely too low at its previous rate. If you do that, you can be absolutely clear that it will have a jarring impact on the economy because the amount of money being spent and many household incomes will just shrink again as they already have done overnight.

Australians won't be able to afford the essentials to get ready for work—clothing, training tools, transport—or mortgages. The rate of this payment currently called jobseeker was absolutely disgustingly low before the coronavirus crisis hit, and we are calling on you not to reduce payments back to this old rate.

People on DSP and carers have missed out, and this is also an absolutely terrible oversight. We know that 90 per cent of people with disability have faced increased expenses due to the coronavirus, but you didn't increase their payments. Energy costs, extra transport costs because they've had to avoid public transport—all of these things have very much impacted on their daily expenses. They've had home delivery charges, been missing out on shopping at the markets for specials and extra health costs have all abounded. We've seen many people fall through the cracks, and people with disability and carers have been forgotten again in the midst of this crisis. Despite the two $750 economic support payments to people on the DSP, it is a lower payment rate than people on jobseeker when the coronavirus supplement is taken into account.

We know that many carers are also being left in situations where they're worse off, particularly if they're caring for children with a disability. And I note that, while people receive a carer payment, they might even still be doing a little bit of work which they might also have lost in the current crisis. In particular, people who care for children with disability might be more likely to undertake casual work that they're able to say yes or no to, even if they've been working consistently and otherwise would have been eligible if they'd been in permanent work for a JobKeeper payment.

Labor was very pleased to be able to secure changes to the stimulus package so that this government can fix these problems with the stroke of a pen. We call on the government today in this debate on the Greens motion to use these powers to provide the extra support for people with disability and carers who've been left worse off.

Another example I want to draw attention to today is the very important university sector. Again, this government wilfully leaves out such a critical part of our economy, like the arts, watching thousands and thousands of jobs disappear right at a time when we need to be recasting ourselves as a clever and smart nation ready to invest in the skills that we need to come out of this crisis. But you've decided that this isn't important. Investing in early education, schools, TAFE or universities—that is an incredibly important economic imperative at this time. Instead you've taken an axe to education when trying to reinvigorate a struggling economy. I really don't understand what you're trying to do here. Are you trying to ask the university sector to run a marathon with a broken leg? We are going to need to call on this sector to come out of this crisis with the skills, education and resilience that our nation needs. However, instead, because of the decline in international students and the chaos that that has brought, you have absolutely failed to support them with JobKeeper or other payments when you have bailed out other parts of the economy with those payments. Again, it highlights that this government has absolutely no gender lens. The Prime Minister has said, 'Look, we understand that this economic crisis is impacting more on women than on men.' But instead what does this government do? It targets JobKeeper and biases stimulus payments to the areas in which men are more likely have been employed than women. I have no problem with the stimulus going to areas like construction, but I have a very big problem with your withdrawal of support from child care. The government's claimed that it has given other top-up payments but these top-up payments are not the equivalent of JobKeeper. Analysis shows that there is likely to still be a gap with the JobKeeper payments.

If JobKeeper's only supposed to be used where there's been a 30 per cent decline in income and revenue, why not leave them in place? Why not leave JobKeeper in place for those services? If what you say is right and the other policy settings are adequate then these centres won't need to call on JobKeeper. So what's the harm leaving it in place?

This is the party that has endlessly bragged about its credentials in regional Australia. But the minute there were imminent job losses, with a solution in front of you, you have gone into hiding. These are the university sectors right around our country that have supported regional communities right around the nation. Instead, you are at: the free market will save jobs. We have tens of thousands of livelihoods being left behind. It is a terrible state of affairs for our nation. The Morrison government haven't explained to this parliament why a university student working a $100 shift per week receives the full $1,500 JobKeeper wage subsidy while a university worker with kids is not eligible for any extra support.

Here is what you should do: take your $60 billion accounting error and do the decent thing and step up to save Australian jobs. The government has said they would do the right thing and stimulate the economy. Are you going to stimulate it? Are you not going to stimulate it? Are you pulling out or are you staying in? Please give the economy life. Talk about turning the economy on, not letting it go limp.