Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021. I want to begin with a quick look at the general Australian economy. When this government faced the onset of the pandemic last year, we knew very quickly that we had two challenges. We had the challenge of ensuring the health and wellbeing of all Australians, and we also had the equally important challenge of ensuring that our economy was protected as much as possible during what was a huge economic shock and that it could recover strongly from that shock. It has been the greatest economic shock since the Great Depression; we must always remember that. We had to put the economy in a position where it could recover from that shock, and the Australian economy has done so in a way that is quite remarkable and certainly not matched by any other advanced economy, to date.

I've said in this place a number of times that your GDP numbers, your headline numbers, aren't important in and of themselves. They're important because of what they mean for real people's lives. They're important because of what they mean for real families, real people, going about their day-to-day lives in the Australian economy. To that end, we've seen that the jobs lost during the pandemic have been recovered and the unemployment rate has fallen to 4.9 per cent, as of June, which is below pre-pandemic levels. Of course we will see some movement up and down in the unemployment rate; we always do. But the numbers show that the response of this government to the shock of the pandemic has been extraordinarily effective in doing what we set out to do—making sure Australian businesses and Australian workers could continue, could plan for the future, could protect jobs and could have enough business certainty, enough business confidence, to invest in the future rather than worrying about how they were going to make their wages bill for the next month.

In terms of jobs, we've seen a million jobs created since May 2020. Employment has surpassed its pre-pandemic levels, with 160,000 more Australians in work. Fifty-six per cent of those jobs have gone to women, while a third have gone to young people aged between 15 and 24. The unemployment rate has decreased in eight consecutive months, as I said, falling to 4.9 per cent in June, despite the end of the JobKeeper program in March. This is the lowest unemployment rate in seven years. Youth unemployment fell to its lowest rate in 12 years. The ABS, in fact, stated:

The end of the JobKeeper wage subsidy did not have a discernible impact on employment between March and April.

The ratio of unemployed people to vacancies is now at its lowest level in over a decade, and 180,000 people have come off unemployment benefits since the end of JobKeeper. Obviously, these are all very good numbers, in any circumstances. But to have these results—to have these people in work, to have 180,000 people come off unemployment benefits and to have 160,000 more Australians in work than pre pandemic—is quite an extraordinary outcome for the Australian economy. I congratulate all those people out there who have managed to take up a new job in this period and all those businesses who have offered those jobs. Again, that shows that businesses have confidence in the future.

I just want to turn to what business has been doing during this period, because it is important to note. Since the October budget, investments in new machinery and equipment have increased at the fastest rate since March 2003, by 8.5 per cent in the December quarter and 10.3 per cent in the March quarter, to be a total of 7.2 per cent higher over the year. Again, this is helping to drive that business confidence, which means that they will take a risk, they will employ new people and they will grow their business. We've got to remember that 18 months ago—and I have heard this story repeated over and over again throughout the small and medium-sized businesses of Australia—people were literally sitting in their offices thinking about how they were going to walk out onto the shop floor and tell their 30 staff, their 15 staff, their 10 staff or their two staff that they no longer had a job. Then details of the JobKeeper program came through, and I can tell you that all those people breathed more than just a sigh of relief. It changed lives. It changed the economy. It changed people's approaches to the circumstances they were in, and it boosted confidence to an extraordinary degree, where businesses were willing to invest.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics measures that the capex expectations for 2021 were upgraded again, from an expected fall of 4.7 per cent in 2019-20 to an increase of 9.7 per cent in 2021-22. According to the NAB business survey, both business confidence and conditions increased to record levels just prior to the most recent outbreak. Business conditions rose to a fresh record high in May, while business confidence also remains around record levels.

Obviously, the lockdowns have an impact on that. We don't deny that, as a government, and we need to have an economic response to that, as a government. That is what we'll do. We understand very much that Australians facing lockdowns are asking questions about their incomes and about the weeks ahead, as well as the pathway back to a normal life. That is why, for Australians facing lockdowns, we are directly delivering financial support, through Services Australia, to individuals and businesses impacted by the lockdowns. We are sharing the costs with state governments, delivering much-needed support to small and medium-sized businesses. People who have lost more than 20 hours of work in the previous week can claim $750. People who have lost between eight hours and 20 hours, or a full day of work, can claim $450. This is the same level of support we provided with JobKeeper last year. This is obviously in addition to all the other benefits they can get at this time.

It is important that, as a government, we respond to the situation we find ourselves in and provide support to those Australians who need it. However, we must also very clearly recognise the difference between the situation last year and the situation this year. JobKeeper was a national program based on business decline in turnover. It was rolled out across the nation, not on a case-by-case basis based on lockdowns in particular states. The support being paid to individuals in lockdown right now can be delivered quickly to those who need it, even as quickly as 40 minutes after application. The COVID disaster payment is effectively JobKeeper, delivering the same level of support to individuals as JobKeeper. As the Treasurer highlighted, the disaster payment is supporting those who are unable to work, who wouldn't be eligible for JobKeeper if it were in operation. So there's a very good case for the changes that we have made to the systems of support in the economy, and obviously they are going to receive support in this place.

I think it's important in my last couple of minutes to note again the importance of giving businesses the confidence to invest in their people, in their economies, in the local economies that they support and to allow them and their employees to continue, even in the continuingly strange times in which we live. Obviously we all hope the lockdowns can end as soon as possible and we all hope that we have a return to a much more normal economy in the very near future.