Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Economic Recovery Package (JobMaker Hiring Credit) Amendment Bill 2020. This legislation will make a very real difference in people's lives and for the national economy. The state border closures have ensured that there are industries and small businesses reeling from the effects of the coronavirus lockdowns. These businesses and families need to see a way out, a way forward, with the federal government smoothing the path back to normality.

I'm afraid to say that I've rarely heard such nonsense as I recently heard from the Greens on what this package will really do. There's such a lack of understanding of what it's really like to employ people out of the hard-earned dollars and the sweat of your family and their future. In the hospitality and tourism industries, pubs, clubs, travel agents and movie theatres have been financially devastated. The JobMaker hiring credit will give businesses incentives and assistance to take on additional young jobseekers who have been struggling to find work. By helping businesses we'll help young people access job opportunities as the economy recovers.

The JobMaker hiring credit will be available to employers for each new job they create over the next 12 months for which they hire an eligible young person aged 16 to 35 years old. It is expected that around 450,000 positions will be supported through this initiative, at a cost of $4 billion from 2020-21 to 2022-23. From 7 October this year eligible employers will be able to claim $200 a week for each additional eligible employee they hire aged 16 to 29 years old and $100 a week for each additional eligible employee aged 30 to 35 years old.

In my home region of North Queensland, this stimulus package will be most welcome. Tourism businesses especially have been hit by a virtually non-existent annual tourist season which has been made even more bleak by the prospect that international traveller numbers aren't likely to hit pre-pandemic levels for the foreseeable future. This federal package will allow these businesses to keep the doors open until things improve, while having the added bonus of keeping people employed and trained, ready to take advantage of the rebound. It is said that the best time to fix the roof is when it's not raining. It's no use businesses frantically trying to train staff and fill vacancies after the tourist wave starts breaking and, worse, after these young people have had considerable time at home without the benefits of being in work, learning new skills, working with people and getting out of the house. These businesses need to be ready to ride that wave, not to be paddling frantically and sliding off the back because they weren't ready.

In rural and regional areas in the north, non-tourism businesses have been fairly well insulated from the sharp drop in visitors and have been able to get by servicing local markets. But youth unemployment is still high, and incentivising businesses to hire these young people will make a difference to that. The difference will be not only in reducing unemployment but also in giving young people a sense of the dignity of having a job and earning an honest wage. The added bonus is learning skills that will help them for life, while also giving young people an incentive to stay in their towns and build a life for themselves—something that I believe is so critically important for regional and rural Australia. These are the regions where we know we grow the food and fibre, we have the amazing tourist products, we mine the minerals and, best of all, we grow these young people who go on to live extraordinary lives both in Australia and around the world.

Peter Davidson, an adjunct senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales, has written:

More importantly, the hiring credit could prompt employers to take on people they might not otherwise have considered - those facing prolonged unemployment.

He adds that it is already estimated that there are 600,000 younger people on unemployment benefits. Business groups suggest that by next year more than a million people will have been on unemployment benefits for over a year, most of them under the age of 35, which is why this scheme is so carefully targeted at younger people.

It is concerning that Labor and others in this place have been so quick to assume a partisan position on this legislation when studies show that it is Labor held electorates that are set to benefit most from it. To quote from our Prime Minister in The Australian:

We also know from past experience that if young people lose work in a recession and can't find their way back, they risk becoming a lost generation.

We can't let this happen. We must do everything we can so that young people do not start their working lives on welfare. The facts also show that there are more young people living in Labor electorates. The need in Labor seats is greater than anywhere else. As somebody who graduated from university in the early nineties, I know, along with my colleague Senator Scarr, that it was a terrible time for looking for work. Every taxi was driven by an engineer or an architect. For those of us looking to find our first professional job in the world, it was very difficult.

There has also been speculation that unscrupulous employers will try to replace older, higher-paid workers with younger, subsidised ones. These extraordinary remarks could only have been made by members of the Greens or Labor—people who have never hired someone using their own mortgage and their own family's future as security, who think of people in the abstract. They can never understand that an excellent employee is held in high regard; that there is absolutely no way that an employer would attempt to get rid of a reliable and effective employee in order to replace that person with someone who is inexperienced, unknown and a new employee with all the regulatory risks that are attached.

Under this scheme, a business will be eligible to receive the hiring credit at the end of each quarter only if it has increased its headcount and its payroll. That is the security designed to ensure that extra jobs are created. It amazes me, as somebody who has run a small business, that these are people who don't understand the extraordinary process of advertising for new employees, weeding through the applications and hoping desperately for somebody who actually wants to do the job that you have carefully found a wage to pay for. You wait, you rule off time to go through the interview process, you carefully try and match somebody who will be a good fit with your other employees and your customers and who will grow your business, and then there is the devastation as half of the interviewees don't show and, on the day, the employee doesn't even turn up to start work. This lack of understanding—the idea that for $200 a week anybody would get rid of somebody who is a great employee, who is part of your extended family and your customers' extended family—best illustrates how Labor and the Greens have no idea about how to grow an economy, how to grow productivity or how to most sincerely value people and individuals.

While there is no doubt more jobs will organically be created as the economy recovers post-COVID, JobMaker shows this government is serious about creating an environment to ensure that this can happen. Any incentives we can provide are good for business owners, good for the towns they're based in, and good for the people who will be employed. This also shows that we are a government that is agile, pragmatic and innovative as we plan for Australia's future after coronavirus. I encourage regional and rural businesses to take up this offer and introduce local people to the world of work, or welcome them back to work if they have been unemployed. This government understands the importance of the regions and values the aspirations of regional people, be they employers or employees.

I can't help reflecting, as well, on the unbelievable rhetoric that I have just heard from a Greens senator—rhetoric about wages theft, as if every employer out there is looking for a way to rip-off the people they value the most, the people who allow their businesses to operate. Again, the Greens and Labor are people who don't understand the complexity of the awards system—the multiple rates, different hours and overtime. It is a very complex system. I can assure you that, even for somebody who has degrees and a very keen desire to ensure that wages are paid correctly, it is very difficult.

They also speak about government providing jobs, as if somehow taxpayer dollars magically—like a magic pudding—go on for as long as you like. I heard this during the Queensland election when the Queensland Labor government talked about providing additional government jobs, again with no understanding that it is private enterprise and small business that provide jobs, grow economies and grow businesses. They are the ones that genuinely provide jobs that pay taxes and allow for government jobs to then be created. It is a startling and frankly shocking lack of understanding about the way the world works. I guess it goes to their belief that you can continue borrowing money as if there were no tomorrow.

Finally, I heard the scoffing description of the forestry sector, as if somehow, because they didn't employ as many people as the arts sector, it was a lesser industry. It's the most sustainable industry. There couldn't be a more sustainable industry than growing trees that go into making houses and furniture and all sorts of useful, amazing things, and then grow again. They grow from the soil and the water and the air and the very carbon that surrounds us. In fact, in north Queensland the timber industry had been run so sustainably and so well for so very many years that the region was considered to be pristine and declared a World Heritage site. There has never been recognition for the understanding of the land and the environment these people have at work, and yet to have the forestry sector scoffed at as if they were not important was, I thought, very shocking. Once again, the Greens as a party are described as having very little connection to reality. On that note, I do commend this bill to the Senate and look forward to our recovery from the coronavirus.