Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment, Skills, Small and Family Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Small for the question and again acknowledge to the chamber Senator Small's background, in particular, as being a small-business owner back in our home state of Western Australia, and the fact that he really understands what it's like to build a business from scratch, to employ people, to pay wages and to certainly have sleepless nights.

As we now know, in Australia, the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is underway, and so is Australia's economic recovery. According to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force statistics for January, we've seen a net increase of 29,000 jobs. That, of course, came off the back of the creation of 59,000 full-time jobs. We've also seen, as Senator Payne knows, women's workforce participation return to the near-record level it was prior to the pandemic. Underemployment is now falling, and, as we know, over 93 per cent of the jobs lost during COVID-19 have now returned to the economy.

All of this has been possible because of the support that the Morrison government has provided, in particular, to small and family businesses across Australia. We've put in place policies that have kept Australians in work, because we've put in place policies that have kept businesses in business. These, of course, included JobKeeper; apprentice and trainee wage subsidies; the cash flow boost, which, of course, gave people back their own hard-earned money; the SME guarantee scheme; and the early withdrawal of superannuation. We put in place a suite of policies, and this suite of policies has played a vital role. In fact, when you look at the RBA research, it estimates that JobKeeper saved over 700,000 jobs in the first half of 2020. Our Supporting Apprentices and Trainees wage subsidy has now supported over 59,000 small businesses to keep 119,000 apprentices on the job, where we need them to be.