Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to contribute to the debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021, and I do so having circulated an amendment to this bill. This is at a time when we are talking about what this place and the government need to be doing to help in relation to COVID for businesses and individuals, including workers who are struggling under the restrictions that have obviously been put in place for health reasons but that are nonetheless having an impact on particular sectors.

One of those sectors, of course, as we've known for a long time—in fact, since the very beginning of when COVID hit here in Australia—is our live performance, music and arts sector—our entertainment sector. Those in this sector were the first to be hit by the restrictions of COVID. They were shut down overnight. One day they had scheduled shows, festivals and events, and the next day they were told that the limits on numbers and venues meant that they would have to shut down. That was over 12 months ago—in fact, it was 18 months ago—yet we've still seen very little coming forward from this government to help this sector.

One of the main issues, as we go through these various different phases and stages of dealing with COVID and managing the various different restrictions—the border restrictions and the different types of lockdowns—is, of course, the boom-bust nature of events that are being organised. It is still the fact today that event organisers—whether in the music industry or in other forms of entertainment; whether they're festivals big, small or in between; and whether they're suburban, metropolitan or the many, many festivals that bring light, culture and a buzz to our regional areas—have found it very difficult to exist without much certainty.

One of the biggest problems, of course, is planning. If you can't access any type of insurance, it's very difficult to plan anything into the future. What we're now hearing from the music and entertainment industry in particular is that, even in trying to plan for things in stage B or when Australians reach those crucial vaccination targets where things hopefully—fingers crossed—will be able to be opened up again safely, they're finding it very difficult to plan without access to proper insurance. Time and time again, events are being shut down overnight, and the cost of that is being left mostly to small businesses that have been wrecked and smashed over the last 18 months. It's very difficult for them to have any capital to rely upon. So what we are facing is a sector that is already smashed, that is struggling and that still can't plan. We've got big insurance companies making it near impossible for small businesses and those involved with events, whether they're musicians or entertainment promoters, to access insurance, with huge price-gouging premiums which simply cannot be afforded, if indeed that type of insurance is available.

I know we've debated these issues many times in this parliament. But, again, 18 months on, the government has not addressed the very dire need for it to address this issue. That is why the amendment that I foreshadow I will move in the committee stage addresses this issue. The amendment directs the minister to put in place an insurance guarantee. This isn't going to cost the taxpayer any money—in fact, it probably won't even cost the government money and it might actually make the government some money. The government will simply act as an underwriter of an insurance scheme because we can't trust the big insurance companies. They are screwing these small businesses to the wall, and these businesses simply don't have any access to affordable insurance. It's not the fault of the small business or the music promoter that they organise an event and it gets shut down overnight with all costs laid at their feet because a state government decides to close its borders, or indeed an outbreak of COVID happens and the health restrictions kick in. These costs shouldn't be borne by those individual small businesses. These costs should be something for which, if government's not going to cover them directly as compensation, at least the government will put in place an insurance scheme. That's all the sector is asking for. It doesn't cost the taxpayer anything; it doesn't cost the government anything. It is just asking the government to address what is clearly a market failure. I look forward to debating these issues when we get to the committee stage and I commend the bill, with these amendments, to the Senate.