Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Hanson for her question in relation to the JobKeeper program. In relation to the final component of Senator Hanson's question about the processes that the tax office undertakes, the tax office has a number of data-matching and other processes that it deploys to ensure that claims made are valid claims—in accordance with the operations and program guidelines of the JobKeeper scheme that they were administering at the time.

It's important to detach some of the public commentary that some have sought to peddle in relation to JobKeeper from what, actually, those rules and guidelines were. There's a perception that has been painted by some in their public commentary that suggests that any business that ultimately still made a positive financial return through the previous financial year was not eligible for JobKeeper. That's not true. There were different eligibility criteria, and the first phase of JobKeeper clearly outlined the eligibility criteria, built upon expectations of businesses at that time. At that time we were dealing with a nationwide lockdown approach, different businesses being forced to close their doors across the country and enormous fears that there could be massive levels of unemployment across the country. That's why JobKeeper was established, and it was established with easy-to-access criteria to deal with the concerns of business at that time. Over subsequent iterations, JobKeeper's criteria were tightened, and, of course, the ATO ensured that only those eligible against that tighter criteria received it. Now we have a different model, in terms of the COVID-19 disaster payment and the business-support models delivered with the states, which provides for even tighter program guidelines. But I can assure the Senate that the ATO enforced the rules at the relevant time. (Time expired)