Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Families and Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

As they have done throughout this crisis, the Morrison Government is committed to assisting businesses and individuals through the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Bill will enable the Government to support individuals and businesses that are impacted by significant lockdowns caused by COVID-19.

Schedule 1 to the Bill amends the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Bill 2020 to allow the Treasurer to make rules for economic response payments to provide support to an entity where they are adversely affected by restrictions imposed by a State or Territory to control COVID-19.

Schedule 2 to the Bill amends the Taxation Administration Act to allow the ATO to share data with Australian Government agencies, both federal and state, for the purpose of administering only relevant COVID-19 business support program payments.

Schedule 3 to the Bill amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to introduce a new power to make eligible Commonwealth COVID-19 business grants free from income tax.

States and territories are already able to apply to the Commonwealth for the same tax treatment where they have grant programs focussed on supporting small and medium businesses facing exceptional circumstances.

Schedule 4 to the Bill will reinstate the operation of a temporary mechanism put in place during the COVID-19 Pandemic that has now lapsed, which allows information and documentary requirements between Government and businesses to be altered. This includes requirements to give information to Government in writing and produce, witness and sign documents.

Given the ongoing impacts and physical limitations imposed by COVID-19, there is still a clear need for these provisions.

This measure provides that a responsible Minister may determine that provisions in Commonwealth legislation containing particular information or documentary requirements can be varied; do not apply; or prescribe that another provision specified in the determination applies, for a specified time period. A responsible Minister must not exercise the power unless they are satisfied that the determination is in response to circumstances relating to COVID-19.

The mechanism is temporary and will be repealed at the end of

31 December 2022. Any determination made under the mechanism will also cease to operate when the temporary mechanism is repealed.

Schedule 5 to the Bill amends the income tax law to make Commonwealth COVID 19 disaster payments received by individuals from the 2020-21 income year onwards non-assessable non-exempt income.

This change will provide additional support to individuals receiving COVID-19 disaster payments by making these payments free from tax.

Full details of the measures are contained in the Explanatory Memorandum.

Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor will support the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021, but let's be in no doubt about why we're having to deal with this bill now, why millions of Australians across New South Wales and Queensland are subject to lockdowns and why we're sitting in the parliament with particularly strict restrictions. It's because of the failure of this government and, in particular, the Prime Minister to do their job—two jobs, specifically: to get the vaccine rollout right, in a speedy and effective way, and to fix the national quarantine system.

These failures are costing Australians every day. The economy is bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars a day and billions of dollars each week, all thanks to the Prime Minister's failures. This is the stark price that is being paid by workers and businesses, particularly small businesses, for the Prime Minister's incompetence. And it's not only been incompetence; it's been dangerous complacency and a complete failure to take responsibility. How many times did the Prime Minister say that it wasn't a race and that it wasn't a competition? What about the government designating aged-care workers as being in the phase 1a category but who still haven't been fully vaccinated? And then, after months of the Prime Minister failing to take responsibility for these failures, it was the fault of the Europeans, then it was ATAGI's fault and then he grudgingly apologised. Even then, at first, it was apologising for not meeting the marks the government had hoped to achieve. Finally, we had the Prime Minister saying he takes responsibility for the early setbacks in the vaccination program.

Now we see the Prime Minister invoking Olympic-level rhetoric—gold medal runs; a triple gold, apparently. It's all well and good to invoke the spirit of inspiration that we've been seeing on our television screens for the last few days, but it's something else to be running a race where we've deliberately been left on the starting blocks or swimming with weights around our legs, thanks to incompetence and complacency and a failure to take responsibility.

Where do we find ourselves right now? Based on the latest data as of 2 August, just under 12.6 million vaccine doses have been administered. So 19.7 per cent of the eligible population, Australians aged 16 and over, are fully vaccinated or, put another way, 15.8 per cent of the total population are fully vaccinated. If we're running a race, based on these statistics we're falling way behind. We're close to last in the OECD, and that's no exception when it came to the vaccine rollout.

Now we hope that we can get to the targets that have been outlined by the government through the work done by the Doherty institute. Based on the information we have seen, we should have the supply required to get us to the 80 per cent target by the end of the year. As the national plan to transition Australia's national COVID response points out, there should be measures to encourage uptake through incentives as part of phase B. Labor agree, and it's why we have called on the government to provide a payment of $300 for every fully vaccinated Australian. That would provide a further incentive to get two vaccine doses and deliver much-needed stimulus for businesses and workers at the end of this year. Unfortunately, as is the government's approach, out of sheer political arrogance they will refuse to take up any useful or good ideas that they didn't come up with.

I've seen the Prime Minister in the last day talk about or seek to lecture on fiscal responsibility and the need to be cautious with our spending. I would say in response to those comments that I don't think the Prime Minister is in any position to lecture anybody about fiscal responsibility considering he is the architect of the slush funds and the rorts that we have seen embedded in this budget. That's not just since he's been Prime Minister. When he became Treasurer, he cottoned on pretty quickly to how to hide money in the budget—billions of unallocated dollars that he could use to buy seats, to buy elections. This is the legacy of this Prime Minister. We won't be taking any lectures about fiscal responsibility from a group that spent $660 million on car parks, targeting particular electorates they want to win, including four in the Treasurer's own electorate. These are the two holders of the purse strings and this is what they're doing. They're doing it with their eyes open, knowing exactly how they're spending taxpayer funds.

We would argue rewarding people for doing the right thing, incentivising those who might be weighing up getting vaccinated, is a very good use of public funds. It's much better than rorting through spreadsheets, rorting through maps, rorting through car parks, rorting through sports grants or rorting through whatever you want to choose. That's how this government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars. So we won't be taking lectures about that. How about we use public funds for the public good? There's an idea. That's exactly what Labor's idea is about—incentivising. It is urgent that we get people vaccinated as soon as possible. That is clear from the Doherty institute modelling and, indeed, from the economic impact analysis released by Treasury yesterday, which put the cost of our slowness in getting vaccinated based on lack of supply in dollar terms. What Treasury have found is that on a 50 per cent vaccination rate and based on the assumptions outlined in this paper the direct economic cost of minimising cases and keeping the cases low is estimated to be about $570 million a week. At 60 per cent, it's around $430 million per week. Once we get to 70 per cent, the costs come down considerably, as do the restrictions placed on people. At 80 per cent, it's still costing around $140 million per week, according to Treasury. So these are the figures. These show you the economic cost—and they don't include the fiscal cost—of the 'strollout' and where we are now. The figure we have today is that just under 20 per cent of the eligible population is vaccinated. By the time we get to 50 per cent, it's still costing $570 million per week to manage this pandemic. So it is urgent. It is important that we incentivise and try to get to these targets as quickly as possible within the supply constraints that have been foisted on this country by the Prime Minister's failure to secure enough vaccine deals and enough vaccines last year when those negotiations were underway. Where many other countries saw the urgency and the need to have a number of vaccine deals, Australia took a very different approach. That is why we are where we are today.

Coupled with those failures on vaccines, we have failures on quarantine. We've seen 27 leaks from hotel quarantine, leading to the mass disruption we are seeing across the country, despite the government knowing and being given advice by the Halton review last year that fit-for-purpose quarantine facilities should be considered to reduce the risk of leaks from hotel quarantine. As we found out at the COVID committee last week, some work is now being done—but only since July—on additional quarantine facilities. It is hard to believe that Finance was asked by the government to look into other sites for federal quarantine facilities only two months ago. Where we're at is that they've done some early feasibility work. But we all know that with projects like this you need detailed feasibility and design work. And whilst the government is reluctant to give us a date, I think what we could take from evidence before the committee last week is that it is months and months away from having any solution on or increased capacity in federal or national quarantine facilities. We also learnt that what the Prime Minister has been telling us, that we've moved from 850 to 2,000 spots at Howard Springs, is also untrue. We haven't got close to that. Last week the numbers were in the order of 1,200 people at Howard Springs. So even the extra capacity that the Prime Minister promised hasn't been reached at the facility that is operational.

The government has simply been too slow to act, and this bill is a consequence of that. The bill before us contains five measures. Schedule 1 of the bill makes amendments to allow the government to make payments to entities impacted by lockdowns during the period of 1 July 2021 to 31 December 2022. Schedule 2 of the bill allows the disclosure of tax information to be provided to Australian government agencies to facilitate COVID-19 business support programs. Schedule 3 of the bill will make payments received by businesses under certain COVID-19 business support programs tax free. Schedule 4 of the bill introduces a temporary mechanism that existed last year that allows ministers to change arrangements for meeting information and documentary requirements under Commonwealth legislation, including requirements to give information and produce, witness and sign documents. This measure will be in place until 31 December. Schedule 5 of the bill would make the COVID-19 payment tax free, covering up what appears to be a slip from the Prime Minister when he said these payments were tax free when guidance online from Treasury, ATO and Services Australia had originally said they were.

Labor does support this bill. Again, we would say that the Commonwealth came late to the table in terms of providing some economic support and engagement. I think they were really forced by the state governments to step up to the table. I think the differential treatment that was provided to Victoria and then to New South Wales, the 'when should the payments kick in' and the 'who should be responsible for what' just shows how dysfunctional this Prime Minister's leadership of national cabinet is. It seems he can't reach agreement with a group of first ministers at all. Unless pressured, he stubbornly refuses to engage; it's only when everyone else can see that the Commonwealth should be stepping up and should be providing support. The lockdown we're having now is directly as a result of the failures of this Prime Minister to manage the vaccine procurement and rollout strategy in the interests of the country and the failure to accept responsibility for quarantine. Quite unbelievably, he is uninterested and without a sense of urgency about managing the risk of people returning to this country. We have 38,000 Australians still overseas, more than 32,000 of whom want to return immediately. There are hundreds of unaccompanied minors overseas unable to return because this government have failed to accept that they have responsibility for quarantine, that they have responsibility for Australian citizens who need to return to this country. The government's failures—the leaks from hotel quarantine, the fact that our communities' vaccination levels are so low—have led to the situation we're in today where we are so vulnerable to the impact of the pandemic that these strict lockdowns had to be put in place.

When it comes to the support that the government's now providing, I think they did it reluctantly. They only did it when they realised how serious the lockdowns were going to be. But overall we support the economic response as it's outlined in this bill. We think the government should keep an open mind about whether they need to do more and how they respond to the situation as it evolves, and we've always said that. Target the assistance to the economic circumstances of the time. That is still our message. It's been our message from the beginning of the pandemic right throughout, and this remains the case. The government should work with other state governments collegiately. They shouldn't treat them differently. They shouldn't be stubborn. They shouldn't refuse support at the first hurdle and then accept the need to step up only when things get really dire.

We need to provide businesses and individuals with certainty that, as we move through the vaccination stage of this pandemic, people will be looked after, they will be supported and we all stand together. Certainty can be provided about economic response. We shouldn't be having businesses wondering when they're going to get help and who they're going to get help from. The Commonwealth should take a leadership role on this. We support this bill, but let's make no mistake: the fact that we're here debating this bill is because of the significant failures of this government in relation to vaccine and quarantine.

I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes:

(a) only 15% of Australians are fully vaccinated;

(b) businesses and workers are struggling from lockdowns made necessary by the Government's botched vaccine rollout and the lack of purpose-built quarantine facilities; and

(c) these lockdowns are costing the Australian economy hundreds of millions of dollars every day".

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting this legislation, as I expect all members of the Senate will. It's fair to say that this parliament has been nothing but cooperative in facilitating the payment of income support to businesses and to people during this pandemic. As a result of that cooperation and the willingness of this parliament to see a wages guarantee established to help prevent total and utter economic calamity and the impacts that would have on so many people, we have seen the government set up JobKeeper in a way that allowed it to be rorted by so many big corporations.

Now, we don't have the definitive figures yet, but data provided by the Parliamentary Budget Office shows that, for more than 365,000 recipients of JobKeeper, accounting for about 40 per cent of workers covered under the scheme, their turnover didn't end up falling below threshold levels in the first three months of the scheme. This means that at least $12.5 billion in JobKeeper payments went to businesses and other entities that didn't actually need it. The final number will likely be higher because these figures are only in relation to the first phase of JobKeeper. JobKeeper became, for some corporations, profit-maker and bonus-payer. The government saw it happening and the government did nothing to stop it. The government has done nothing to rectify it since. The government seems entirely comfortable with the biggest stimulus program in our country's history being rorted to the hilt by big corporations. You'd be forgiven for thinking the government designed it that way, because, if nothing else, we know full well that this government looks after its mates, the billionaires and the big corporations. And those people, the billionaires and those companies, the big corporations, are the people and companies that won out of JobKeeper more than anyone did.

The bill before us today is very similar to the bill that established the first JobKeeper. This bill, like its predecessor, is effectively a shell that gives the Treasurer extremely wide scope to make rules for payments to entities affected by the pandemic. The Greens accepted the argument for the JobKeeper bill to be structured in such a way given the speed with which parliament needed to respond to what was then an unheralded set of circumstances. But here we now stand, 17 months into the pandemic, and we have, or should have, a much better understanding of what we're facing and the government should be much better prepared. But instead, they are serving up to us another blank canvas for the Treasurer.

The government should not, any longer, be making it up as it goes along. The government, by now, should have put in place an off-the-shelf payment program for the rolling series of lockdowns that they themselves predicted that we would be facing. Not so long ago the Treasurer was crowing about the March quarter economic data, no doubt with an early election in his mind. But instead of counting his chickens before they hatched he should have been putting his mind to what the country actually needed, which was certainty and clarity as to what kind of support would be provided in what circumstances when the inevitable happens.

Given that this parliament is once again presented with a bill with such wide scope for the development of COVID support payments, the Greens have circulated an amendment that seeks to prevent a re-run of the JobKeeper rorts. The Greens second reading amendment on sheet 1359 is a straightforward proposition, and I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate calls on the Treasurer to ensure that rules regarding payments providing financial support to entities prevent payments being made to, or include a mechanism to recover payments from, large companies that are profitable or pay executive bonuses in the same financial year that they receive a payment".

This amendment says to the Treasurer, 'Don't give any more money to the big corporations that are profitable or that pay executives bonuses or, if you do give them the money, make them pay it back.' This is what the government should have originally done with JobKeeper and this is what the parliament should ensure that they do with the next round of payments. I encourage the Senate to support this amendment and send a clear message back to the House that this latest round of support payments is not to boost company profits and is not for the payment of large executive bonuses.

A final note on the JobKeeper rorts: this parliament has a chance to rectify the situation, to ensure that the billions of dollars in public money that ended up boosting the profits of big corporations and lining the pockets of their executives is paid back. I've tabled a bill on behalf of the Australian Greens, the Coronavirus Economic Response Package Amendment (Ending JobKeeper Profiteering) Bill in the Senate, and that bill is currently under inquiry. That bill proposes withholding tax input credits equal to the value of JobKeeper payments made to large companies that ended up being profitable or paid executive bonuses. It would also establish a public register of large companies that received JobKeeper, very similar to what Senator Patrick is proposing in his amendment to this bill. I hope to bring that bill before the Senate before the end of this year.

Over the next three or four months we should get a much clearer picture of just how much JobKeeper was used to boost company profits and pay executive bonuses. I predict that Australians will continue to be shocked and dismayed by just how extensive the rorting was, and I expect that the public anger at what happened will continue to grow.

Before I conclude, I also want to note that, according to the announcements made already by this government regarding the payments facilitated by this bill, those in receipt of standing income support payments—JobSeeker, youth allowance, disability support pension and carer payments—are once again being ignored by this government. The lockdown support payments already announced do nothing to ensure that those who were already relying on an income support payment, who were already struggling before this latest wave of lockdowns, have enough money to live in dignity and to live above the poverty line. If history is any guide, it's those who were struggling the most before the pandemic hit and before the latest lockdowns that will find it hardest to make a good life for themselves in the aftermath of the economic shock. That those opposite continue to treat their fellow Australians with such disrespect and disdain just confirms that they're not here to look after all Australians; they're here to look after their mates, who run the big corporations and who are the billionaires who have profiteered so spectacularly and built their wealth to such obscene levels during this pandemic.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, I advise you that Senator Gallagher has already moved a second reading amendment, so at this point yours is foreshadowed. Senator Brockman.

Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Before I begin my remarks on the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021, I want to acknowledge the millions of Australians who are currently in lockdown around our country and the millions more who have only just been released from a lockdown in their state. We know that the delta variant makes lockdowns a necessary tool in our arsenal against COVID-19, but the necessity of these lockdowns doesn't make them any easier for those living in them. Indeed, there are huge costs for Australians living in lockdown: the economic cost of lost hours of work, of lost business; the social cost of the disconnection from friends, family and loved ones; the health cost; and, especially, the cost to the wellbeing and mental wellness of too many Australians.

Australian families in lockdown are doing it incredibly tough around our country, just as they done in South Australia and Victoria recently. I want Australians to know that, when we are here talking today about the economic cost of lockdowns, we haven't forgotten the other ways in which this pandemic is hurting you, the other costs it is bearing down on you—socially, in terms of your health and in terms of your wellbeing. And I want to say to South Australians, in my state, that I am as desperate as you are to see Australia return to business as usual as quickly and as safely as possible.

This bill goes to the immediate economic impacts of the lockdown and it provides the administrative support arrangements necessary to ensure that the Commonwealth can deliver support to those Australians who need it the most. This support is desperately needed. It was desperately needed in South Australia, and I know it's desperately needed by individuals around our country who are also experiencing lockdown. That's why Labor will be supporting the bill. We know it's our responsibility to support Australians when they need our help the most.

We are 18 months into this pandemic and, in too many ways, it feels like we're right back in 2020. With bated breath, Australians across the country are tuning in to their premiers' press conferences each morning wondering what the numbers will mean in their state. The Prime Minister, in his morning press conferences, says a lot but is helping little. Our parliament is operating remotely, as we are doing today. Businesses are struggling to understand and implement the rules. Shops are open, shops are closed. Masks are on, masks are off. In the last month alone, we have seen half the country put into snap lockdowns in response to outbreaks of the delta variant. In New South Wales, we've had weeks of it and we've got weeks to go, without a clear end in sight. We've got uncertainty about what the future holds in Queensland, and, of course, all of us live with uncertainty every day about when the next outbreak might occur, what that might mean and whether we're back in lockdown, whether we're back in those conditions: locking down, shutting up shop, stopping work.

And let's be clear, until the government get the vaccine rollout right and until the government get a handle on quarantine, which is their responsibility, until they get that right, lockdowns for the Delta variant will be a way of life. People's lives will be disrupted; hours will be lost at work; businesses will be closed, suffering through no fault of their own. Stock will be thrown out. Staff will be stood down. There are still rents to pay, but with reduced income. There will be reduced support and reduced viability. There will be confusion and fear. Kids will be forced to do home learning. We're yet to know the impact of being away from school for so many of these children—particularly vulnerable kids, kids with poorer internet connections, kids who suffer more than others when things like this happen. And, of course, there are parents struggling to work full time at home and home school their kids, feeling great fear and great uncertainty about what the future holds.

Initial estimates suggested that the most recent South Australian lockdown could come with a $200 million hit to our local economy. That is horrendous. The economic impact of this in my state is horrendous. It's horrendous at the broader scale, in terms of the impact on our state, and it's horrendous at the micro scale—the small businesses throwing milk down the drain because they're not serving coffees this weekend; standing staff down; not knowing how to stock their fridge for the weekend trade ahead; not knowing whether staff are going to be needed or necessary, whether they can survive doing things like takeaway or whether they can even open their doors. How do they keep their staff safe if they do open their doors? Wages are lost from the pockets of workers, of employees whose employers have been forced to stand them down.

And for those employees, those workers in casual work and in insecure work, these challenges are even greater. For those workers who live pay cheque to pay cheque, who find it hard to wait even a week for a disaster payment to kick in, losing just a few hours of work can mean the difference between paying their rent and paying their grocery bill, paying their electricity bill and feeding their family. For these workers this is especially tough. These workers have no choice to work at home. These workers, when their employer shuts their business and these workers are stood down with no means of supporting themselves and their families—over and over again we have seen Australians put in this position during lockdown, this position of vulnerability, this position of fear. It's unacceptable. Yes, it is a necessary tool in our lockdown arsenal against the Delta variant, but we shouldn't be here. Our ticket out of this is better quarantine; our ticket out of this is a better, effective vaccine rollout. And on these two fronts—these two fronts that are the Commonwealth's responsibilities—we have seen failure after failure from the Commonwealth government.

So while we welcome this bill—we welcome the measures within it, we welcome the ability for the Commonwealth to provide this level of financial support—we need to actually get the policy levers right, which would ensure we don't have these lockdowns, we're not in this position over and over again. If we do that, we give that certainty and that security to Australians. We protect them. We keep them safe. That is the key role of the Commonwealth government here. That is what they should be delivering, and that is what they have failed to do over and over again.

This bill enables government to make those policy decisions to provide for that financial support, and we welcome that. I note the payments are tax free, although the government seem to be in a bit of kerfuffle and confused about whether that was the case and whether it would be so, but we welcome that. We welcome that it means more support into the hands of Australians and into the hands of Australian families who need it. But, the fact remains that until the Commonwealth gets those two policy levers right, those two policy levers we know they are responsible for—vaccinations and proper quarantine facilities to replace hotel quarantine—and which we know would keep Australians safer from these variants entering Australia, then we are going to continue to live with bandaid solutions—solutions which fix the impact of these failures rather than address the heart of the failures, which is what the Commonwealth needs to be doing.

I want to see us through this as quickly as possible. I don't want to be here talking about economic and financial support, because the fact that we have to means that those costs have already been borne by Australians. That difficulty, challenge and heartache has already been borne by South Australians. I don't want to be here discussing this. So we support it, but the best we in this place and in this chamber can do is get to the heart of the reason why we're here and fix the policy failures of the Commonwealth.

This vaccine rollout is failing—it's failing to get the take-up it needs, we're failing with supply and we're failing with communication—which has left Australians feeling anxious and uncertain. We need Australians to get vaccinated. Vaccination is the key to get out of this mess. Vaccination is the key to get back to a life that is more normal, to being able to live alongside COVID. The Commonwealth have failed. They have failed in the rollout. They have failed in supply. They have failed in the messaging. Is it any wonder that Australians feel the way they do about this rollout?

Today I want to mention young Australians as well because they have suffered tremendously at the heart of these lockdowns and throughout this pandemic in so many different ways. They have borne the brunt of the economic impacts of COVID. Their jobs are among the most insecure and are often the first to be axed. Their super accounts were the lowest before they were forced to raid them during the pandemic last year, because that's what government policy forced them to do. It's their future that's affected in terms of the fiscal implications of this and the burden they have to bear going forward.

For every missed target, disappearing horizon and unmet deadline younger Australians face the prospect of their workplaces being closed, of missing out and of suffering in terms of their economic wellbeing, their social wellbeing and their mental health. Overwhelmingly, young Australians have suffered very hard at the hands of this pandemic. They've been forgotten and looked over by too many in government. It's not acceptable for those young Australians. They have borne the brunt of this pandemic. They have borne the brunt of the economic impact, and they will continue to bear the brunt of it going forward.

The lockdown in South Australia recently was incredibly hard. I want to acknowledge every South Australian who found it challenging and tough. Mums and dads were home schooling their kids. They were trying to work at home and do the best they could. It was a tough situation. Of course there are also families and workers in our community who didn't have the choice to work from home. They were stood down because of the lockdown. They didn't have a choice to go to work and do their job there. Their job could only happen when the business they work for is open.

Of course, our essential workers did go to work every day. They worked in the supermarkets and drove our buses. They put their health on the line to make sure our community and economy could continue to run and function. We owe these workers an enormous debt of gratitude. They had to go to work each day knowing the risks and the potential impacts. They have done a tremendous job. Some employees working in these essential sectors have been some of the most undervalued in our society. I hope that, if anything changes from this pandemic, it's that we value them properly now. Our supermarket workers, our childcare workers, our public transport workers and our cleaners have carried so much of the burden of this pandemic and yet in many ways they have continued to be underpaid and undervalued.

In closing, Labor of course support this legislation. We support measures being taken to limit and ease the economic burden on Australian citizens because of these lockdowns. Of course we support that, but let us not just support Australians with these sorts of systems; let's support them with policy that goes to the heart of the failures that mean lockdowns are essential in the first place—failed vaccination rollout and failed quarantine. If the Commonwealth gets those two things right, admits and acknowledges its failure and just does better then perhaps we won't need to sit here discussing these measures. Perhaps we could get back to business as usual in Australia. Perhaps we could start to see an end to the incredibly burdensome economic, social and human costs this pandemic is having on South Australians and Australians more broadly. That's what I want to see. That's what I'm fighting for in here. So, whilst we welcome and acknowledge these measures, let's actually see from the government, please, an earnest attempt to fix the failures they are responsible for, which would mean we wouldn't require these measures in the first place.

Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021 and I indicate upfront that I will be supporting this bill. The measures in this bill are in fact needed; I think everyone accepts that. The bill was provided to me in confidence on Monday, and I thank the government for getting it to my office early. It is often difficult, particularly for the crossbench, to deal with all the legislation approaching for the week. It was tabled in the House yesterday and it's being dealt with in the Senate today. It has not followed the normal process because it's urgently needed to assist those in lockdown in Sydney. It's interesting that the explanatory memorandum, when I was looking through it, had a line that shocked me when I saw it. Page 3 of the explanatory memorandum says:

Compliance cost impact: An exemption from Regulation Impact Statement requirements was granted by the Prime Minister as there were urgent and unforeseen circumstances.

I find that actually quite unbelievable. This is the sort of text you might think would win some literary award because it certainly is fiction. I accept the need is urgent as there are people in Sydney who need help. I don't accept that the bill needs to be urgent because this was foreseen. There must have been advice to the effect that we would need further assistance as we had to deal with various strains of the pandemic. If there was advice that said something different, we need to really look long and hard at this advice. But the problem is we can't see any of it.

We can't see any advice because any advice that's related to the health of Australians during this pandemic is sprinkled with national cabinet secrecy dust, completely unnecessarily. I'm pleased to inform the chamber that tomorrow, at 2:45 pm New South Wales time, Justice White will hand down his decision in my matters challenging whether the national cabinet is a cabinet, so I'm waiting to see what happens there. I think that will be interesting because hopefully that will open up the information that flows through to parliamentarians, to experts, to professionals in the medical field and to the public, so that they can critique the advice and analyse the advice for themselves. I'm hopeful that I'll get an outcome that will support that future course. This is the problem. Transparency is a good thing. When transparency exists, people are required to perform at their absolute best. And it's in the absence of transparency that we see all sorts of things go wrong, as has happened in this pandemic, as has happened in relation to quarantine, as has happened in relation to the vaccine rollout.

This morning I revealed the fact that the COVID vaccine certificate, which I received just last week as I got my second AstraZeneca jab, is easily forged. As we were developing a vaccine that almost certainly—in fact, inevitably—will be connected to health measures, that's something that should have been thought about. I'm pleased to say I have talked to Minister Reynolds and opened a dialogue. I do appreciate you, Minister Reynolds, allowing me to approach you on that. But again, if we'd seen what was happening behind the scenes, some of these comments could have been made a little bit earlier, and perhaps we could have had better outcomes, or outcomes that worked a bit sooner, and, indeed, we wouldn't have to waste money by repeating things.

That leads me to the amendment that I am going to move during the committee stage. This is an amendment that focuses on transparency. It was mentioned by Senator McKim in his speech in the second reading debate. I'll give you a bit of history around this amendment. My amendment seeks to provide transparency in relation to large companies that get public funding throughout this pandemic, and that goes back through JobKeeper.

I'll just explain to you what happened in New Zealand in relation to their wage subsidy program. New Zealand spent approximately $12 billion on COVID-19 direct wage subsidies, and they received $637 million back from companies who said, 'Look, we thought we might have needed it, but actually we didn't.' Five and a half per cent of what was paid out was actually returned. Here in Australia we've spent approximately $89 billion, close to $90 billion, in COVID-19 direct wage subsidies, and we've only received $225 million back. That's 0.25 per cent in repayments.

The difference between Australia and New Zealand is not in any strict legislative regime that attempts to minimise corruption or fraud; New Zealand also approached it with the view 'Let's help first.' But what they have done is publish on a website—it's very easy to find, and I encourage senators to go and do this—the names of employers who receive a subsidy payment and how much they get paid. If they fully repay the money, they're taken off the list. If they partially repay some money, that is reduced from the amount that is shown of the total subsidy they received. It's not name and shame. It's about saying that, if a company is in receipt of public funding, there's a reasonable expectation from the public's side that that's information that ought to be known. It's not private company information per se, because it's about the amount of money—taxpayers' money—given to the company. We understand that many of these companies needed that money. Many companies may well need money that is being delivered under this particular program, under this particular bill. In New Zealand they have quite successfully managed to get greater returns from people who didn't require the money, just by being transparent and letting people see where taxpayers' money went.

That is, in effect, what my amendment seeks to do. My amendment seeks, as a starting point, simply to have the names of larger companies who received JobKeeper published on an ATO website that has the name of the entity, the number of individuals for whom the entity received a JobKeeper payment, each period for which the entity received a JobKeeper payment, the total amount of JobKeeper received by the entity and whether or not they've voluntarily paid back any money. It's pretty simple. It's not intrusive. It's a transparency measure that's designed, in the case of JobKeeper, to have companies look and say: 'You know what, it's now out there publicly that we received this money. Can we properly justify it?' They may answer, 'No, so maybe we should pay it back,' or, 'Yes, we can justify that and we thank you very much, taxpayer.'

That's the aim of my amendment. It doesn't seek to do it, however, just in relation to JobKeeper; it also seeks to do it, moving forward, for any payments made to larger companies, to enable the public to see what is being spent with whom. This new bill will encourage a system of honesty and integrity that makes sure that taxpayers' money is actually spent properly and in accordance with the intended aim of the payments. I'll speak briefly of this again during the committee stage. I encourage senators to support my amendment.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's an honour to rise to support the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021, and in doing so to continue the government's efforts to provide support to people through these very difficult and costly times for our nation. We have provided well over $300 billion of assistance across the Australian economy since early last year. The government have always been willing to respond as necessary to people's needs during that time, but we must also recognise the enormous cost that has come to our nation's balance sheet and our nation's wealth. This will limit the options that future generations of Australians have, because they will be burdened with a much bigger debt than they expected just 18 months ago. In fact, our debt now, approaching $1 trillion, is the highest it has been as a share of our economy since the end of World War II. As a nation we face a lot of threats and challenges beyond the coronavirus, and we must make sure we do all we can to maintain our fiscal strength in helping future generations of Australians to respond to these challenges.

I want to start by responding to some of the points made in this debate, particularly by those opposite. Some have suggested that all we need to do is get the vaccination rate up and then it will be back to business as usual. The sun will come up, lockdowns will end and there'll be no more coronavirus—it'll all be gone. That's not what the modelling showed yesterday. It is past time as a nation that we in this place, of all people, be upfront with the Australian people and get rid of the fantasy and fairytales that we are continually trying to put the Australian people to sleep with. We should front up to them with the facts and the reality of this terrible pandemic and what might happen in the next few years in this country regardless of what we do or how many people get vaccinated in the months ahead. That was revealed yesterday in the modelling.

Perhaps the most revealing figure in the Doherty Institute modelling was that, even in an environment where 80 per cent of Australians get vaccinated—and that's the target to get to phase 4 of the plan—within 180 days of hitting that 80 per cent target and reverting to some baseline restrictions, while still testing and tracing—and I'll come back to that—40,000 vaccinated Australians will become symptomatically infectious with the coronavirus. So far, in the first 18 months of this pandemic, 34,800 Australians—or it might be 34,300—have been infected with coronavirus. So even when 80 per cent of Australians are vaccinated, within six months more vaccinated Australians will pick up a symptomatic version of the coronavirus. We need to face up to that. It's more than that—that's just people who are vaccinated. You can have these things called breakthrough infections.

I am pro-vaccination. I am planning to get mine. I encourage everyone to do the same. But again, we have to be up-front with the Australian people, that the evidence is people still can and do, quite commonly overseas, pick up a coronavirus infection despite being vaccinated. It does, of course, greatly reduce their risk of death or hospitalisation. But on top of the 40,000 people who would unfortunately get the coronavirus, even with the vaccination, another 238,991—let's call it 240,000-odd—Australians who are unvaccinated would also become infectious with the coronavirus within six months. So let's be up-front with the Australian people: even at an 80 per cent vaccination rate, within six months, we would be looking at 280,000 coronavirus infections, well above—seven times—what we have experienced in the first 18 months of this pandemic. That is the reality and the truth of the situation we're facing. And those 280,000 coronavirus infections would be in a world where we still had a two-square-metre rule; they would be in a world, according to this modelling, where we would still have only 70 per cent capacity at sporting stadiums; we wouldn't go back to full crowds in this world where we had 280,000 coronavirus infections. It would be a world where we still had testing, tracing, isolation and quarantine. So if you went to a place or you were unfortunate to be in a place where one of those 280,000 infections occurred, you would then have to quarantine as well. It will not return to normal, even with those figures, even with that vaccination rate, and it is high time we recognised that fact.

It would also be the case, if people picked up infections, that they would go to hospital. People will, unfortunately, die, and we need to be up-front with people about that. The government cannot save every life. The government cannot get rid of the two certainties in life, one of which is death. Possibly we could get rid of taxes—we could possibly do that—but I don't think we will; that certainty will still be there for people too. Under this modelling, with 80 per cent vaccination rate across Australia, within 180 days, around 2,000 Australians would be admitted to ICU wards and over 1,000 people would die, including 439 people who were vaccinated. They would unfortunately die, according to this modelling.

Again, the vaccinations aren't perfect. I'm pro-vaccine. But we cannot keep telling people the fantasy that we can solve all of these problems. If we don't be up-front with the Australian people, we will not be able to get out of this and we will continue these very cruel lockdowns, which are causing enormous costs on our economy and particularly on people. I am against the lockdowns. The evidence we have seen this week has shown why that should be the case. A part of the reason is that these lockdowns just kick the can down the road. As those figures show, we will eventually, even with vaccination, still end up in an environment with infections, with deaths, with fatalities. We are not comparing here a cost today for infection tomorrow; that is an unattainable promise that should not be made to the Australian people. We are facing the situation of any road being a difficult one for us to venture along. The key thing, though, is which road, which path, can lead to the lowest cost for all Australians, not just focus on one thing—the coronavirus.

There are daily press conferences where we focus on how many cases there are, whether or not someone has tragically died from coronavirus overnight. Unfortunately, it is a common tendency for people to manage what is measured. We are measuring the coronavirus very minutely at the moment, so we are obsessed with managing it. There are no press conferences, though, about the number of small businesses that went to the wall last night in Australia. There are no press conferences which tell us all how many marriages have broken up last night because of the stress of people being in lockdown. There are no press conferences telling us how many people have lost their jobs and who are at their wits' end overnight because of these lockdowns. And because we are not measuring those costs, they are being ignored and are not being factored into proper decision-making.

Unfortunately, the decisions to lock down are being made by people here and in parliaments at the state level. None of us, and none of the advisers and public servants who are informing us on these decisions, bear a cost of the lockdown in any true sense. We still get paid. We still have a job. We can still pay our mortgages and keep our houses. We are in what's called the laptop class. I can work off a laptop. In fact, I'll share a little secret: I kind of like lockdowns. I'm sorry, I don't like the fact that we have to do them. But I can stay at home with my family. I don't have to travel. I don't have to go to boring meetings or functions. It's fantastic. But there are a whole lot of people out there in this country for whom it's not good. For them, lockdowns are no fun. They lose their jobs. They lose their business. Where in this parliament and this place is the voice for them? Who is giving them dignity by standing up for them against the cost of these lockdowns that are being imposed by people who don't have to bear the cost themselves, don't have to take a pay cut, don't have to stay awake at night thinking about how they're going to pay their mortgage and don't have to stay awake at night thinking about how they're going to make up the payroll for their employees? Where are the people advocating for them? There are an enormous number—millions—of Australians now facing that situation, and we ignore them by continuing these lockdowns, which are far too costly.

We deserve a proper assessment of the costs of this approach. I welcome the figures that were released by the government yesterday, but they didn't amount to a costing of lockdowns. They are a costing of the four-phase plan—a costing of different vaccination levels and what they mean—and the conclusions are clear: high vaccination rates are good, and they are what we should be aiming for. They will lower the cost of any strategy. Any particular response to the coronavirus will be better and less costly the more people we can get vaccinated, and that should absolutely be our goal. But the modelling released yesterday assumed that we would impose lockdowns at certain levels of coronavirus spread, so it did not actually assess whether or not a lockdown strategy was less costly, even just in economic terms, let alone in terms of mental health and the other issues I've spoken about. It did not assess whether that is less costly than an approach which is more focused on testing, tracing, isolation, quarantine and reasonable restrictions and measures that fall short of putting everybody out of work—or at least putting everybody not in the laptop class out of work.

We deserve that. We deserve to do that for the millions of Australians who do not have the same flexibility that we in this place have. To be upfront with them about how much this is costing them and whether, in fact, it is the right decision for all, we should be providing them with that information. There are limited figures out there about what these lockdowns are costing, but you can make a pretty clear estimation of the massive costs of some. There was some modelling by a different organisation, the Burnet Institute, another respected group of virologists. They said this week that the New South Wales lockdowns had avoided 4,000 coronavirus cases. I have no reason to dispute their figures, so 4,000 coronavirus cases have been avoided. At that stage the New South Wales lockdown had gone on for 35 days. AMP estimate that the lockdowns are costing $150 million a day. That probably seems like an underestimate, especially given the extra support we're providing now, but, regardless, let's take it as $150 million a day. So, at the 35-day mark, the lockdowns had cost $5.3 billion to avoid 4,000 coronavirus cases.

Simple mathematics shows that that means we are spending $1.3 million to avoid each and every coronavirus case. That is $1.3 million for each case—not a fatality, not an admission to an ICU ward, but for each case. That's just the economic cost. That doesn't include the impact on people's marriages, their small businesses and their long-term health. This is way out of whack, and perhaps the reason we haven't got proper costings for this or what it is costing our economy, our society and our communities right now. The figures would be eye-watering and indefensible, because it is indefensible to spend that amount of money to avoid one coronavirus case. We do not apply that in any other public policy issue. Twenty thousand Australians a year die from smoking, 5,000 die from alcohol and around 1,000 die on our roads. We do not ban these things; we live with them. We realise we can't avoid every risk. We let people get on with their lives and make their own decisions about that balance.

What would be best, sooner rather than later, is if we restore the principle of personal responsibility and people making their own judgements about risk. Those of us that are lucky enough to work from home can still choose to do that. If we got rid of lockdowns, you could still do that. I could work from home on my laptop—I didn't have to be here this week—and I could avoid or limit my trips outside. You could do that. But imposing that lifestyle on people who don't have the same flexibility as you is immoral. It is extremely painful for those Australians who are suffering right now under an imposed, government enforced, police backed and now Army backed lockdown of their lives. We have to restore some balance to this debate and be upfront with the Australian people about what the future holds, and the future holds whatever we choose. Whatever vaccination rates we go for, coronavirus will spread. We must learn to live with this virus.

Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like other Labor speakers, I will be supporting the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021 because Labor certainly supports the government's plans, albeit belated plans, to get money into the hands of people who are suffering right now from Prime Minister Scott Morrison's lockdown. We know that there are millions of people across Australia hurting very badly as a result of the Prime Minister's failures, which have led to these lockdowns, and I will have a little bit more to say about that over the course of my contribution.

The mere fact that we need this bill is evidence of the Prime Minister's failures. As we have often said, and will continue to say, this year the Prime Minister had two jobs: to fix the vaccine rollout and to build purpose-built quarantine stations around our country so that we could stop relying on hotel quarantine. Hotel quarantine is a leaky system which, so far, has seen 27 leaks of COVID-19 from it, and no doubt with more to come over the months if not years that we will have to wait for this government and this Prime Minister to finally build the quarantine facilities that were recommended by their own expert last year.

It is terribly sad for millions of Australians that the Prime Minister has so grossly failed to perform those two jobs that he had. And the results can be seen all around us. There are currently 10 million Australians in lockdown across greater Sydney and South-East Queensland. I note it has been confirmed today there is a COVID-positive case in Cairns, so we will have to keep an eye on what happens there, and in recent days there has been a COVID-positive case in Central Queensland as well. That has not led to an outbreak as yet, and we can only hope that that remains the case. These are the consequences of the Prime Minister's failure to do his job.

We remember this Prime Minister saying, over and over again, that the vaccination rollout was not a race. 'It's not a race; it's not a competition.' And you can certainly see that was the attitude this Prime Minister had when you look at the league table for how Australia compares to other countries—we're the worst in the developed world. If this were a race under Prime Minister Scott Morrison's leadership, we wouldn't have even started. We wouldn't be out of the starting blocks. We are being lapped over and over again—not just by highly developed countries around the world that we like to compare ourselves to, but also by quite disadvantaged countries in the world. They are so far ahead of us in vaccination rates that it's not even funny. So, the fact that we have 10 million Australians in lockdown right now is direct evidence of this Prime Minister's failure to do his job. The fact that we now have jobs being lost again, businesses closing again and businesses going bankrupt again as a result of lockdowns is directly attributable to this Prime Minister's failure to do his job and to take the advice and suggestions of the opposition.

Over the last 12 months I've almost lost count of the number of constructive suggestions that the opposition has made to the government to try to get on top of COVID and to try to avoid the kind of damage that we are seeing across the country now. We were calling for wage subsidies long before the government caved in and agreed to JobKeeper. I heard Senator Brockman give himself and give his government a pat on the back about JobKeeper. Well, I also remember when the Prime Minister was saying that wage subsidies like JobKeeper were dangerous. And, because of the time that it took the government to get moving on JobKeeper is why we saw all of those queues outside Centrelink early last year, all of those jobs that people lost never to be recovered, because this Prime Minister and this government were so stubborn about a Labor idea.

We've seen it again when it comes to vaccines. We were calling for the government to do five or six vaccine deals with different companies, like what we've seen other countries do, but, no, they knew better. It was all about AstraZeneca with a little bit of Pfizer thrown in to top it up, and we all know how that went. If they'd only been prepared to listen to Labor's suggestion about doing deals with five or six companies, we would have many more millions of Australians vaccinated by now and we wouldn't be in lockdown in Sydney and we wouldn't be in lockdown in South-East Queensland with all of the job and business losses that come with it.

We suggested purpose-built quarantine stations, but, no, that couldn't happen because it was a Labor idea. We suggested a serious investment in home-grown manufacturing of mRNA vaccines, but, no, that couldn't happen because it was a Labor idea. We suggested a proper information campaign, particularly to multicultural communities where we are seeing high rates of COVID infections at the moment and low rates of vaccinations, but, no, that couldn't happen because it was a Labor idea. And it happened again yesterday when Labor again put a constructive suggestion forward about paying incentives to get people vaccinated, just like we're seeing in the US and across Europe and Asia. It's good enough for their governments and good enough for their people to have incentives for vaccination, and they're well ahead of us in terms of vaccination rates, but, no, it couldn't happen in Australia. Why? Because it was a Labor idea.

This Prime Minister and his government, at some point, have got to recognise that they've got to actually think about the national interest no matter who puts forward an idea. If it's an idea that's going to work, that's going to lift our vaccination rates, that's going to keep Australians safe, that's going to shield us from the immense economic harm that we are feeling around the country right now, then that good idea should be accepted no matter who suggests it. I don't care if the Prime Minister feels a bit embarrassed or a bit bad that he's having to rely on the opposition to put forward ideas rather than come up with his own—I just want these things done. If he wants to take credit for them, like he has done with JobKeeper even though he resisted it in the first place, well, fine, just do it, because that is the way that we will lift vaccination rates, keep Australians safe and keep Australians running their businesses and keep them in work. That's what matters. Again, his refusal to do so comes back to this stubbornness that we see over and over from the Prime Minister, his constant desire to play politics rather than put the national interest first. It comes back to that complacency we have seen from the Prime Minister and so many other ministers in this government over the last few months, best exemplified by that quote which will hang around his neck forever, 'It's not a race.' Well, we know where that has ended up.

So, on behalf of my family who are currently in lockdown in Brisbane, unable to go to their workplace, home schooling, and on behalf of every family in South-East Queensland or Sydney or anywhere else in the country that's going through lockdown right now, 'Thanks very much, Prime Minister. Maybe next time we put forward an idea you might like to actually hear it out and think about whether it would work rather than just dismiss it because it wasn't your own idea.' It's not about the Prime Minister putting his own vanity about whether he has an idea above the interests of the Australian people first. The interests of the Australian people should always come first, not the Prime Minister's vanity, not the source of an idea.

As I say, the Prime Minister's failure to do his job to get vaccines in arms and to build quarantine stations is having a direct impact right around the country at the moment, and day after day after day in local media we see examples of the kind of economic carnage that is being caused right now. I mentioned yesterday that, earlier in the week, before the South-East Queensland lockdown started, I met with representatives of the Gold Coast Airport. Their passenger numbers have fallen from about 80 per cent of pre-COVID levels—so they were starting to get back to pretty close to normal. The minute the Sydney and Melbourne lockdowns started, their passenger numbers fell to 10 per cent. That isn't just having an impact on the profits and workers at the Gold Coast Airport; that means there are fewer people coming into the Gold Coast, going to the hotels, going to the restaurants, going to the shops. So that is destroying the local economy across the Gold Coast.

It's the same in Cairns, where I was last week, meeting with tourism operators. And Port Douglas is one of the most popular tourist resorts in the country at this time of year and is usually full of people from Melbourne, particularly, escaping the dead of winter in Melbourne. Prior to the lockdowns interstate, they were at 85 per cent hotel occupancy. The minute the Melbourne and Sydney lockdowns started, their occupancy levels fell to 30 per cent. So that's going to put tourism workers out of work in Far North Queensland, and it's no doubt going to send many businesses to the wall, given they were barely hanging on in the first place.

These are the direct consequences of the Prime Minister failing to do his job. It is not an academic exercise. It is not a political point in a speech. It is about people's jobs, their livelihoods, their health and whether they can actually continue functioning, despite what is going on with COVID around the world. As I say, even today these problems continue to go on. I noticed today the chief operating officer of Village Roadshow Theme Parks on the Gold Coast was quoted in the in the Gold Coast Bulletin:

"Many small businesses are practically trading insolvent and in Village's case we are burning cash with our ongoing costs, which is a really significant burden," he said. "For us to survive, we need (government) support in lockdown, out of lockdown and it needs to go to December 31. I speak on behalf of every hotel, every accommodation house in this city, and of all the small business here who are in dire straits."

Small businesses on the Gold Coast and across South-East Queensland are in dire straits because of Scott Morrison's lockdown, the lockdown that was caused because the Prime Minister didn't take it seriously, because he didn't think it was a race, because he didn't get people vaccinated and he didn't build quarantine stations. As I say, it's the same in Cairns, and I noticed it in last night's TV bulletins in Cairns. The head of Tourism Tropical North Queensland, Mr Mark Olsen, said: 'Without wage support, we will lose business forever.' Mr Ken Chapman, the head of Skyrail, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Far North Queensland, described the current situation as worse than 12 months ago, because back then they had JobKeeper. They don't have it now. In fact, because Far North Queensland is not currently locked down, they're not getting any support from this government. Their tourist numbers have fallen away, they've got businesses going to the wall because they were barely hanging on because of the last lockdowns, but now, because they are not in lockdown, there is not a dollar of financial support from the federal government to assist those businesses or those workers. It is not good enough.

This is the price of the Prime Minister's lockdown. This is the price of his not taking this seriously, of saying it's not a race, of not doing his two jobs, being to get people vaccinated and to build quarantine stations. In fact, the situation when it comes to vaccinations has been made really stark overnight with the release of new data from the federal government which shows just how low the vaccination rates, particularly in regional Queensland—and, no doubt, other parts of regional Australia—are. I will just give you a couple of examples. In Queensland right now, in the Mackay, Isaac and Whitsunday region, only 10 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated. That means 90 per cent of the population in the Mackay, Isaac and Whitsunday region is not vaccinated, is at risk of getting COVID when it gets into the region, is at risk of a lockdown happening. That's a seat this government hold. They have the power to get vaccines there. We see them rort every other program under the sun—to get car parks in their electorates, to get sports grants in their electorates—but, when it comes to getting vaccines in the arms of their own constituents, in their own seats, they're the slowest in the state and the slowest in the country. Central Queensland is not much better, with 14.7 of the population fully vaccinated. Even more worryingly, in South-East Queensland, which is currently in lockdown because of a spate of delta variant vaccinations, in the Logan-Beaudesert region, only 13.2 per cent of the population is vaccinated—13.2 per cent of the population vaccinated in an area that is currently locked down and is at high risk of COVID outbreaks emerging. And it's not much better anywhere else in Queensland. So we need this Prime Minister and this government to take this seriously and to finally get vaccinations happening.

Labor supports this bill and we support these payments being made. If the government had done its job, it wouldn't have ever happened. But we are here. There are nevertheless a few gaps in terms of these payments, which we have been taking up with the government and which need to be addressed. Under this system, workers aged under 17 are unable to access the payment. My office has heard from young apprentices who don't qualify for these payments even though they are out of work. Workers living outside of COVID hot-spot declared areas but forced to lock down are not eligible. Sole traders and microbusinesses have fallen between the gaps, as well as casuals who are not scheduled for work. There is still work to be done and the government needs to get on with it. (Time expired)

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I would like to make a contribution to the debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021. This bill is the latest example of the government failing to adequately provide support to people suffering from the devastating impacts of lockdown. This bill allows the Treasurer to make rules for economic response payments during lockdowns between July this year and December 2022.

The economic and social impacts of lockdown are harmful. Lockdowns are especially harmful for the most vulnerable members of our community, including disabled people, carers, single parents and people without work. At the beginning of the pandemic, the Morrison government did something that, frankly, we never expected them to do. They raised JobKeeper to $1,115 a fortnight, doubling, in fact, the JobSeeker payment. This transformed the lives of thousand of people. For the first time in years, these people could afford to pay rent, buy medications and have three meals a day. It enabled them to survive the lockdowns of last year.

The Greens warned the government not to reduce JobSeeker back to the level of the poverty line when they decided they had provided enough support and we were coming out of the pandemic. We warned the government that people would need to access adequate income support as the pandemic continued. Instead, the government chose to condemn millions of people on income support to living in poverty. When the latest outbreaks occurred the government was dragged kicking and screaming to provide additional supports. These supports are inadequate, and, when they first came in, they ignored those living on income support, leaving them out in the cold.

More than five weeks into the Sydney lockdown, the government has finally provided some limited support to people in lockdown on income support payments. However, to qualify for the additional payment of $200, people on income support payments need to have lost at least eight hours of work. This means 350,000 people on income support in Greater Sydney missed out on critical support. These people, through no fault of their own, cannot find work. Once again, they are being punished by the government simply because they cannot find work. Of course, they cannot find work in the pandemic either—it's worse. I'm concerned that this number will only keep growing as the lockdown continues in Sydney and the threat of lockdown looms over other states and territories. At any time, any state or territory could go into lockdown because the Prime Minister hasn't secured enough vaccinations and hasn't fixed hotel quarantining.

I would like to take this opportunity to foreshadow a second reading amendment in my name that Senator Hanson-Young will move for me that outlines our concerns with the government's broad approach that continues to leave people behind. It will address people on income support and the fact that they have been ignored and are not getting additional support. It will outline the fact that it is very difficult for 350,000 people to try and survive on $44 a day. It outlines the fact that, if we want to ensure that people stay home, they need to extend support for all people on income support. It deals with the issue that people who have lost fewer than eight hours of work continue to be excluded from the payment. It also deals with the fact that all income support payments should be increased above the poverty line and that everybody who has lost work should be given adequate support, with access to the full JobKeeper rate, so that everyone is supported through this pandemic.

Almost half the people on the JobSeeker payment have an illness or disability. Many will need to isolate and require extra services like grocery or medication delivery. How can they afford to do this living below the poverty line? I'm very worried about disabled people and older women, who make up a significant proportion of the people on the JobSeeker payment. I'm very concerned that they will not be able to afford the basics during the lockdowns that are going on now and into the future. You cannot on the one hand say that people should stay at home and then on the other hand not provide adequate support for people to do so. This haphazard approach to managing the economic fallout of this pandemic is damaging our communities that are in extremely stressful situations because the government simply did not have an adequate plan.

By introducing the COVID supplement of an extra $550 a fortnight for people on JobSeeker and youth allowance payments at the beginning of the payment in March last year, the government acknowledged that $40, at that time, was never enough to survive on, and neither is the now changed payment of just $44 a day. It is not enough to live on. We know it's forcing people to live in poverty, and people are now expected to be living in poverty in lockdown situations. Particularly if they're vulnerable, they aren't able to go out and buy groceries and essentials; they have to pay extra. We know from the last lockdown that costs increased significantly for people living on income support. People in New South Wales will be going through lockdown without the means to afford essentials. It will be the same in other states like Queensland if, unfortunately, they have to go into lockdown. This is cruel and should not be happening in a country as wealthy as Australia. If we want people to be able to feed, clothe and house themselves, they need a payment of $80 a day. We will keep campaigning to achieve this for people doing it tough on income support.

To keep everyone safe, the government must ensure that everybody can afford to stay at home. Income support is a public health emergency. People who cannot afford to stay home are at greater risk of getting COVID and spreading it. We should be doing absolutely everything we can to support these people. Instead of income support above the poverty line, we have a government prioritising tax cuts for the rich. We have them giving handouts to their billionaire mates while the most vulnerable members of our community are condemned to living in poverty. This is appalling. To support people to stay at home and follow public health orders, the government must provide COVID disaster payments to everybody on income support—everybody on JobSeeker, youth allowance, DSP and the carer payment—not just those who have lost work. Of course people who have lost work need that additional support, but everybody should receive additional support. We had adequate income support at the height of the pandemic last year. We desperately need it back again.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021. Before I go into some detailed comments I'd like to provide some initial observations.

The first is this. There are a small number of people in this country who are in very high positions of authority who are doing the best they can in extraordinarily difficult circumstances to make decisions, to make choices—in many cases they are choices between options neither of which would be preferable in the usual times—and they're having to make those calls and those choices in real-time, based on the best evidence and advice that they can secure. I think it is incumbent upon all of us, especially those of us who are not in executive positions, to demonstrate a little bit of empathy for people who are in leadership positions and who are doing the best they can in very trying circumstances. I extend that principle to those in executive or leadership positions, whether or not they are in leadership positions in a parliamentary sense or in a Public Service sense, such as those in our police forces, other emergency organisations, business organisations, the union movement, right across the board, and I extend that empathy to everyone in those positions, regardless of their political colours. We're all Australians and we're doing the best we can in the extraordinary circumstances of a once-in-100-years pandemic. That needs to be acknowledged at the outset. I don't think it helps or is in the national interest for the rhetoric to get out of control in that regard and for it to seek to link specific health outcomes with the performance of individuals when those who are making those statements and those comments know that individuals in those positions are making decisions on the basis of the best scientific advice that they can obtain and the best expert advice that they can obtain. Are they getting it perfect? Does anyone ever get it perfect? Where did this expectation that we're going to achieve perfection in terms of responding to a situation like COVID-19 come from?

Certainly, those opposite need to perform their role of keeping the government accountable. That's their role, absolutely, and I respect that deeply, but I think at times we all need to consider our rhetoric and whether or not it's in the national interest when the rhetoric gets out of control and, I think, goes beyond that which is necessary for us to discharge our functions. Communication needs to be measured and respectful. It needs to take into account the fact that different Australians under great stress at this point in time are saying and doing things which they might consider are correct and right. We need to extend respect and empathy to every single Australian in our country at this point in time and seek to unite our country, not to divide it, and I apply that principle with respect to all communication by stakeholders, including those in the political sphere. It's so important that at this point in time our language unites us, not divides us.

My friend Senator Watt from Queensland said the Prime Minister had only two jobs. I bet the Prime Minister wishes he had only two jobs, but unfortunately, the reality is extraordinarily different. At this time in our nation's history we're in a position where we have to face certainty of security issues, especially in our region. We are living in a challenging world in that respect. The Prime Minister tomorrow will deliver a Closing the gap report in relation to Indigenous health, education and economic participation in our society. There's the issue of our veterans, and those of us who were present in the chamber yesterday saw the very animated discussion with respect to issues relating to veterans and veteran suicide. There are a plethora of jobs, a plethora of responsibilities that come with being the Prime Minister of this country, and I think that needs to be respected.

Secondly, I say to Senator Watt that I think it is grossly unfair—grossly unfair—to connect our Prime Minister with a particular lockdown situation. I think it is grossly unfair and, from my perspective, it is an example of the rhetoric exceeding what is called for in a respectful constitutional democracy. I think it's just not called for. The fact of the matter is that the lockdown has arisen from the delta variant of the COVID-19 virus. That's the cause, and one only has to look at countries all over the world to see that every country on the face of this planet is having to confront this delta variant of the COVID-19 virus and the disruption that it causes to economies and societies. It is extraordinarily unfair and unhelpful to seek to link our Prime Minister to a particular lockdown. To be frank, when the rhetoric gets out of control, when the rhetoric goes beyond what is reasonable and rational, it actually undermines constructive points that are made by those on any side of the chamber. When the rhetoric is overblown, it undermines whatever is constructive and positive in senators' contributions to debates in this chamber. I think that needs to be recognised.

Senator Watt quite legitimately wanted us to consider the issue of the $300 cash incentive for people to get vaccinated. Let's consider that on a fair and reasonable basis. On the one hand, one can see the prima facie argument for offering $300 to someone and that that will provide them with an incentive to get vaccinated and, by reason of their getting vaccinated, that will decrease the chances that they're going to get COVID-19 and therefore decrease the risk of transmitting it to someone else. That is how the $300 payment is being justified. Let's accept that on face value. But let's also accept on face value that there are arguments against the utility of that proposal. I want to run through a few of those arguments. As at 2 August 2021, 8,537,516 Australians had received one dose of a vaccine and 4,061,924 had received two doses of a vaccine. Taking on board the constructive suggestion and that the intent is constructive, we would be paying $300 to 4,061,924 who've already received two doses of the vaccine. That equates to something in the region of $1.2 billion. I don't see the public policy argument to pay $1.2 billion to people who've already done what you're trying to incentivise them to do. I just don't see the public policy argument in trying to motivate people to do something that they've already done.

In the case of the 8.5 million people who've received their first dose, if we extended the $300 cash bonus to them, that would be $2.55 billion in payments. Those 8.5 million people have already demonstrated their intention to go through with the vaccination program. I'm one of those as I've had my first AstraZeneca shot, and my second one is scheduled for the first week of September. Again, it is hard to justify why you would be paying $300 incentives to someone who has already demonstrated that they're going through the process of getting vaccinated. If we add the $2.5 billion to the $1.2 billion, we get $3.7 billion that would be paid under Labor's proposal to pay $300 to people who are vaccinated by 1 December. So, on a public policy basis, on a public policy argument, we've got to consider the opportunity cost of that $3.7 billion and how it could be better spent. Senator Siewert, to whom I listen very carefully whenever she makes a contribution in this place because of her passion for those Australians who are in difficult positions, is certainly recognised by me.

Surely to goodness we should be deploying that $3.7 billion to assist Australians who are in specific difficulty and who need that support, whether that's through mental health support, through augmenting disability services, in case of jurisdictions which are in lockdown, or through providing targeted and proportionate assistance to small business. The $3.7 billion which Labor proposes to use to pay people who have received either one or two vaccine doses could be far better spent in terms of targeted support to people who genuinely need it at this point in time. Our response needs to be proportionate, targeted and temporary. Those are the guiding principles which the Australian government has adopted throughout this pandemic, and they are the principles which should continue to guide our public policy decision-making in that regard.

The bill before the Senate has five schedules. The first schedule provides the power for the Treasurer to make rules for economic response payments to provide support to an entity where it is adversely affected by restrictions imposed by a state or territory to control COVID-19, and it applies to all states and territories equally, as it should. Whether it's Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland or wherever, the same rules should apply. Those amendments are required so that those rules can be introduced in a timely and efficient way to ensure the support starts flowing as quickly as possible. Schedule 2 provides for the disclosure of tax information to Australian government agencies to facilitate COVID-19 business support programs. That's clearly something which is warranted. Schedule 3 deals with the taxation of business support. Payments received by eligible businesses under certain COVID-19 business support programs administered by the Commonwealth government will be non-assessable, non-exempt income so that the payments will not be subject to tax. It's very important that that clarity is provided as soon as possible so that those who are providing financial advice to small businesses are able to do so with some certainty. We should always remember that this is an extraordinary measure for extraordinary times. Schedule 4 provides for a modification power, which essentially provides flexibility to adjust information and documentary requirements in order to ensure the continuation of business transactions and government service delivery. Schedule 5 provides, again, for tax exemptions for COVID-19 disaster payments, in this case those payments received by individuals, from the 2020-21 income year onwards so that those payments are free from income tax.

In summary, this is another step in the process of the government responsibly dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic—a once-in-100-years pandemic—and it applies the principles which the government has applied throughout its COVID-19 pandemic response: temporary, targeted and proportionate assistance to those who need it most.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I join the debate today speaking on the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021. Labor is supportive of any measures to help Australians, including people in my home state of Tasmania, to get through this pandemic as unscathed as possible. With further lockdowns expected, due to the incompetence of Scott Morrison and his tired, eight-year-old government, more economic measures are necessary. Scott Morrison has had two jobs throughout this pandemic—firstly to roll out the vaccine and secondly to build a fit-for-purpose quarantine system—and he has failed at both. Business support payments, as outlined in this bill and other bills, are crucial if we are to get the economy back on track. Labor will not stand in the way of support for businesses trying to make ends meet during a global pandemic.

The Australian people know too well that this tired and old Morrison government has mishandled the pandemic. Those opposite have mishandled the rollout of the vaccine and they have mishandled quarantine. To this day, only 15.4 per cent of Australians have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. This is not a figure to boast about. Let there be no confusion here: the only reason this legislation is before the Senate today is because of the Morrison government's failure to bring this pandemic under control. Whether it's through the vaccine rollout, hotel quarantine or cutting off JobKeeper too early, this government has failed workers and failed businesses. This government is good at one thing: looking after its mates. The government has been more than content handing out $22 million of taxpayers' money to Harvey Norman to fill their coffers while people have been left outside in the dark without any real support from this government at a time when they most need it. Every Australian feels for their fellow Australians in New South Wales and Queensland at the moment. Our thoughts have been with them throughout the pandemic, just as they were with the Victorian community when they were forced into a number of lockdowns.

The delta strain presents new challenges, but these challenges should have been foreseen by this government. We were always going to run into trouble when so few Australians have been vaccinated. With only 3.89 million Australians fully vaccinated, delta was always going to threaten lives—and now it's not just threatening them, it's taking them. For many workers and small businesses in New South Wales and Queensland, support has been too little and too late. Businesses are closing their doors—closing them for good. All of this was avoidable, but now, because of Mr Morrison's incompetence, we don't know whether we're going to be able to stop it. The majority of Australians wouldn't be out of pocket if it weren't for the Morrison government's failures on rolling out the vaccine and quarantine.

Mr Morrison said the vaccine rollout isn't a race. He's wrong. It is a race, and Australians are paying the price for his failure. He may want to use the Olympic terminology about racing, but the reality is that this Prime Minister has been found wanting—demonstrating no leadership at all. Every Australian knows it's been a race to beat the pandemic. Every Australian knows it's been a race that we needed to win. Only yesterday, every newspaper across the country declared that it is a race. After reading some of that media, Mr Morrison has come to accept the fact that it has been a race.

Mr Morrison left many workers and industries out in the cold. Frontline workers in retail and hospitality have not been valued the way they should be. He doesn't value truckies, who have delivered the goods and kept the services that we needed moving throughout this country. He doesn't value our airline industry and the workforce that keeps Australians in the skies. He doesn't value local government workers or the arts community—and I spoke yesterday about the lack of support to the university and tertiary education sector in this country. And then there are the aged-care and disability carers. They've been last on Mr Morrison's list to be vaccinated. It's an absolute tragedy. People want their Prime Minister to fight for them. They want to know that their Prime Minister has their backs—and, frankly, they're realising that this Prime Minister doesn't; he shirks his responsibilities. Remember when the Prime Minister told the Australian community that he 'doesn't hold a hose'? Mr Morrison, you need to take responsibility. There needs to be a network of purpose-built quarantine facilities across the country.

What have we seen from this government? There's been no leadership whatsoever. It can't even roll out the vaccine in a timely manner. They were late getting out of the starting blocks in ordering vaccines and making sure we had the supplies from the outset. Right now, in the biggest crisis facing our community and the world in over a century, the Prime Minister has been unable to communicate a vision for Australians to be fully vaccinated so that we are out of lockdowns for good. When a healthy woman in her 30s dies because of COVID-19, and Australia had the opportunity to eradicate this virus with a successful rollout of the vaccine, that is an unmitigated disaster and a huge failure of this leadership—and my heart goes out to the families of those who have lost their lives. More recently, there is the impact that delta has had on so many young people and now children.

The Prime Minister is not solely responsible. He doesn't have to shoulder all the blame, because the minister for health, Mr Greg Hunt, should also be held accountable. At no other time in our history would a minister survive in his job when it is so obvious that he has failed to carry out his job—as minister for health during this pandemic. Mr Hunt will go down in history as the worst health minister that Australia has ever seen. People in Australia are still dying because of active decisions made by Mr Hunt throughout the mishandling of this outbreak, and yet he's still the minister for health.

We also have the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services, Mr Richard Colbeck, who has failed older Australians over such a long period of time. He has failed the aged-care sector, firstly, by being reluctant to ensure that all the recommendations of the royal commission into the aged-care sector are adopted by this government and implemented in a very timely manner. Now he has mishandled the pandemic. They were warned about the serious nature of COVID-19 early enough to ensure that those in the aged-care sector were protected. I have to remind you of the tragic circumstances in 2020, when 685 older Australians died because of COVID-19 infections in residential aged care, despite, as I said, those early warnings that these sites were highly vulnerable. We also have dismal vaccination rates for people in disability homes and for disability carers, with only one-third currently vaccinated.

Why aren't these ministers being held accountable for their failures in their ministerial duties to keep Australians safe? If Australia had rolled out the vaccine and installed nationally coordinated vaccination and quarantine systems, Australians would not be dying again. Fourteen million Australians would not be forced into another avoidable breakdown of their businesses and their livelihoods, and they would not be in lockdown right now. This is destroying their livelihoods, the family businesses. There is the harm this is doing to their mental health. Scott Morrison's ministers should be and must be held accountable. I'm calling for the resignations of Mr Hunt and Senator Colbeck. They should be sacked by the Prime Minister. Instead, Lieutenant General John James Frewen has been brought in to cover for Mr Morrison's failure and for his ministers' failures.

It is unacceptable that we have this second-rate Prime Minister who continues to fail to take responsibility for his own failings. He blames everyone but himself in communicating with the people of Australia. Mr Morrison didn't negotiate enough vaccine deals early enough. That's a fact. He failed to heed the early warning signs and protect older Australians in aged-care homes—fact. He has failed to protect aged-care and disability workers—fact. He has failed to protect teachers, retail workers and transport workers—fact. He has failed to bring back JobKeeper and to keep Australians safe—unfortunately, another fact.

I'm angry that people's lives are still at risk because we have a prime minister bereft of any leadership tendencies whatsoever. We have a Prime Minister who has only ever been worried about his own job and how he is perceived. People's lives are not only at risk but their mental wellbeing is as well. We do not know the full impacts of people's mental health but we will see that transpire over the coming months. While New South Wales and Queensland are in lockdown it hurts the entire country. Tasmania may be in its quietest season for tourism, but we rely on mainlanders travelling to our great state to see and taste our world renowned cuisine. We rely on our mainland brothers and sisters and neighbours to stay for a few—

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We seem to have lost Senator Polley on the video link. Senator Roberts.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia I speak to the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021. This bill is notable for what it is not. Before financing economic response packages using taxpayer funds, government must pay taxpayers the respect and courtesy of a comprehensive definition of the problem being addressed and then a comprehensive detailed plan to which taxpayers and our parliament can hold the government accountable. Yet state and federal governments are lurching from one COVID event to another with no detailed plan. This breeds confusion, duplication, waste and, as we've seen, contradictions within and between governments that are, in plain language, stupid and leave taxpayers incredulous.

This is driving fear, confusion, frustration, insecurity and anger between, within and across our country and our communities. Everyday Australians have had a gutful of states blaming and bickering with each other and with the federal government while imposing capricious, arbitrary COVID lockdowns and restrictions, killing businesses, killing employment and killing our economy—and killing people. People are crying out for leadership, competence and integrity. People need to be heard and they want a proper plan.

What's involved in a comprehensive plan for managing a virus? It starts with data, truth and care. In March and April 2020 I spoke in the Senate and indicated that after seeing reports of tens of thousands of deaths in Italy, Spain, France and China we would vote with the COVID-19 measures the government introduced. At the time, I repeatedly warned the government that in the months ahead we would hold the government accountable. I expected them to provide the people with data and with a proper, detailed plan for their COVID response. I've been holding government accountable since May 2020 yet we've still not seen a proper, detailed plan. The government has not even shared the underpinning data on the virus characteristics nor the Doherty Institute modelling nor the erroneous, flawed UK modelling on which the Doherty modelling is based. Yet the government has splashed a huge bucket of taxpayer cash, hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, like swill.

Economic measures need to be based on a solid plan. In Senate estimates hearings in March and May this year, the chief medical officer and head of the federal Department of Health both agreed with my list of strategies for a proper plan to manage the virus. There are seven strategies. The first is isolation, lockdowns and national border closure, only initially. The second is testing, tracing and quarantining of the sick and the vulnerable. The third is restrictions, such as social distancing and masks. The fourth is injections, vaccines, provided they are properly and fully tested and safe. The fifth is treatments using cures and prophylactics. The sixth is personal behaviour, such as washing hands. They added that one. The seventh strategy is health and fitness. Both health officials confirmed that my list is complete. It does not miss anything. It does not contain anything that should not be in a plan. All these seven strategies need to be considered. I'll return to this list in a minute.

I asked these officials for data characterising the virus, in terms of severity or mortality and transmissibility. I specified clearly that I wanted data relative to past respiratory diseases, such as SARS, MERS and severe flus, including the 1918 Spanish flu and the 1997 H5N1 avian flu. Their later written answer included a diagram showing that, while COVID-19 is highly transmissible—highly contagious—its severity is low to moderate. I'll say that again: its severity is low to moderate. The diagram does not show that some people with COVID-19 have no symptoms. Many people diagnosed with COVID show symptoms typical of flu. A small group with comorbidities can die. Having that breakdown into groups is crucial to having a proper plan for managing the virus. Where is that breakdown? Why has government not shared this data with the people.

By the way, Texas and Florida have opened their economies and removed COVID measures, including lockdowns, masks and business closures. These jurisdictions have experienced a pattern of infection, hospital admission and mortality almost identical to that of other US states that are still in lockdown. After Florida's only lockdown, Governor DeSantis apologised to his residents, and he has had no further lockdowns despite Florida having a high proportion of aged residents.

So how many of the seven strategies are our governments adopting? Firstly, the states are capriciously using lockdowns, killing our economy, killing small business, killing the regions and killing people through increased suicides and attempted suicides. That's slamming a trillion-dollar debt on Australians not yet born. Even the UN's World Health Organization, a corrupt, incompetent and dishonest body, now admits lockdowns are a blunt instrument to be used only initially to get control of a virus. In continuing to use lockdowns, states are revealing they have not mastered the virus. Instead, the virus is managing the states. Six days ago, the New South Wales Deputy Premier and Leader of the Nationals openly admitted that the New South Wales state government has no clue what is happening with lockdowns. We welcome his honesty.

Lockdowns are a form of controlling people, useful for increasing widespread fear. Fear is a weapon not only for control; it's used to win elections. Invoking a crisis is a well-known tactic to help incumbent governments. The federal government's partially closed national borders are a form of isolation, yet there are valid, proven strategies for better managing this that are based on data. Due to a looming election, it seems the Prime Minister has taken a lesson from Queensland, the Northern Territory and WA, which ramped up fear of the virus before state elections to invoke the power of incumbency and fear. What a disgrace! When politicians and media talk about the cost of COVID, they are lying. The truth is it's the cost of politically driven, capricious government restrictions that are not based on data.

The second strategy is testing, tracing and quarantining of the sick and vulnerable. Although improving, testing and tracing in Australia have been poor. Vulnerable people are largely not adequately and fairly quarantined. Taiwan, though, a small island crammed with a population similar to Australia's, has achieved an amazing performance with no interruption to its economy and no legacy debt. Taiwan did not lock up everyone. Instead, it protected the sick and the vulnerable. Taiwan's economy continued to hum along because this proven strategy cut COVID's economic costs.

The third strategy is restrictions such as masks and social distancing. Remember: initially there were not enough masks available, and authorities here and overseas told us that masks were not important. Yet later, when masks became available, the same authorities told us masks are vital. When Queensland's health minister earlier this year forced mask use, she was asked whether drivers alone in cars by themselves would have to wear masks. She clearly had no clue and then hesitatingly said, 'Mm, yes.' When Brisbane, in one corner of our state, had three COVID-19 cases in January this year, the Labor government mandated masks across the entire state, including in the tiny town of Bamaga, 2,700 kilometres away in our state's northern tip, where there were no cases at all. Masks are becoming a form of conditioning people to follow orders and to submit to government.

Vaccines or injections are the fourth strategy. The federal Chief Medical Officer, the head of the federal health department and the head of the Therapeutic Goods Administration have all refused to guarantee the safety of these expensive injections. There have been reversals of advice, and the public is now afraid and hesitant. Health authorities do not know the dosage needed, don't know the number and frequency of doses and admit that injections will not prevent transmission of the virus, will not stop people getting the virus and will not end restrictions. The effect on children in the womb and on future generations is not known. The long-term effects on people injected are not known. Why the hell are the government injecting with an untested, unproven drug?

Serious adverse effects, including deaths, due to the injections have occurred here, and overseas thousands of people have died. Governments, state and federal, have repeatedly contradicted their own earlier advice and assurances. Federal health minister Greg Hunt publically admitted, 'The world is engaged in the largest clinical vaccination trial.' We're not lab rats. Governments are using threats of digital passports, or, as I call them, digital prisons, that withdraw services and prevent access to work and to livelihoods, to travel and to events. Government wants to remove basic freedoms. No wonder vaccination hesitancy is spreading across our country. Never before have Western governments injected healthy people with a substance that can kill.

The fifth strategy is that, at the same time, our government is depriving us of Ivermectin, a known treatment and preventative for COVID-19. This would dramatically reduce costs—the need for packages. Over a period of 60 years and for various diseases, Ivermectin has proven safe in 3.7 billion doses. It's already approved in Australia to treat a number of health conditions. In April last year, I raised the topic of promising Ivermectin in vitro trials on COVID in Melbourne, yet the government has done nothing. Ivermectin is easily affordable and over the last year overseas has become a highly successful and proven treatment for COVID, plus over 40 medical scientific papers now hail Ivermectin's success. Prominent doctors across many fields of medicine, including immunology and respiratory diseases, advocate Ivermectin for treating COVID-19. Yet the federal government in Australia sits on its hands, is not exploring Ivermectin's potential and refuses to authorise its use for COVID. The government is ignoring a proven medicine that could end this virus's reign, as it has overseas. The government again has blood on its hands. Overseas, this proven strategy is drastically cutting COVID's economic costs and keeps people healthy and economies healthy.

Ivermectin has one hurdle though. Its use will eliminate the hundreds of billions of dollars revenue for vaccine makers from vaccines that bypass standard testing and approval processes.

The sixth strategy is personal hygiene, such as hand washing, personal behaviour and practical actions. It's the same as for stopping the flu or a cold, another strain of coronavirus.

The seventh strategy is health and fitness. Obesity and other diseases increase the risk of COVID-19, yet government has done nothing. Although this is mostly personal responsibility, there's a role for government providing data and advice.

Of the seven strategies that senior federal health officials confirmed the government is relying on only one expensive strategy of injections with known adverse health effects and on the partial closure of borders. Instead of data, governments are pushing fear. Instead of a detailed plan, governments are pushing paranoia. Instead of strengthening our economy, governments are lining big pharmas' pockets. COVID-19 exposed our country's core, atrocious state and federal governance—atrocious and deadly.

Governments talk now about a new COVID normal. That is rubbish. If governments cared and wanted us to feel safe, they would have an end-to-end solution for COVID, a solid, detailed plan based on solid data and specifying what actions will be taken, why they will be taken, when they will be taken, where they will be taken, who will be responsible and how they will be taken—a solid plan. Before an economic package is produced, there must be a plan. Then it must be costed and a business and health case made for it. When organisations, whether a business or a government or a not-for-profit, work to a plan, the plan can always be changed as circumstances change and more data comes in, yet our state and federal Liberal, Labor and Nationals governments have never attempted to make a detailed plan. That shows that Liberal and Labor and Nationals governments do not care about people's health and lives, do not respect the taxpayers of Australia, do not provide solid governance.

Governance of an entity, any entity, has three aspects. First is trusteeship for the entities' values, yet governments are trashing Australian values. Second is custodianship for the entity's future, for those Australians not yet born, yet governments are trashing our children's future and burdening them with a trillion dollars of avoidable debt. Third is stewardship for the entities' resources, yet governments are wasting taxpayer funds and killing our country's productive capacity. Instead, the government in this bill is just going to spend taxpayer money and tell other departments who they're giving it to. This is not a plan. It's an excuse to splash cash and not be accountable. It will motivate unaccountable premiers to waste more taxpayer money while destroying our country's tax base. It's the very opposite of our Constitution's foundation: instead of competitive federalism we are having yet another example of competitive welfarism. The core issue this bill perpetuates is shoddy governance, atrocious governance.

Repeatedly, this government shows it cannot plan. That means it cannot govern. It is based on hollow marketing slogans. Its intent is to look good, not to do good. It aims to be re-elected, not to serve. The only thing this government has going for it is Anthony Albanese and the Labor Party. This bill discusses government making 'disaster payments'. It dishonestly does not discuss the fact that state and federal government caused the disaster.

Australia needs honest, competent, consistent leadership using solid data. Government needs to serve the people and serve Australia's national interest. We need to restore governance that cares for people's lives, cares for people's livelihoods, cares for people's security and cares for people's future. We need governance that cares for our country's security, our country's values, our country's economy and our country's future. We need a government that is honest and that serves the people. We have one flag above this parliament, we are one community and we are one nation.

We will be supporting one of the Greens second reading amendments, to recover financial support from entities paying executive bonuses, and Senator Patrick's third reading amendment to instil a register of entities— (Time expired)

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak in favour of the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021. Right at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, back at the start of 2020, it was clear that Australia would be facing not only the impacts of a global health crisis but also a global economic crisis. In my home state of Tasmania, where, with perhaps the exception of the north-west coast, we have been incredibly fortunate in avoiding much of the health crisis, it was the economic concerns and the concerns from small-business owners that I was first hearing on the ground when this pandemic first took hold in Australia.

As well as the unprecedented challenge of keeping Australians safe, governments had to face the prospect of restrictions on movement, restrictions in consumer confidence and the closure of international borders putting extreme pressure on many businesses and many industries. Since the beginning of 2020, we have seen all of those fears come to pass and then more. Businesses small, medium and large in every state and territory have at different times and to differing degrees been affected. There have been times when businesses have been unable to open or operate for weeks and months on end, particularly in Victoria last year during the major outbreak and lockdown. We're again seeing that happen in New South Wales and South-East Queensland as I speak in here right now.

Of course, we also need to remember that it's not just the businesses directly situated in outbreak areas that are being affected. As we've come into 2021 and lockdowns have been more isolated, that has certainly been a recurring theme. It's not like 12 months ago when most of the country was in lockdown; with isolated lockdowns we are now understanding and learning more about the impacts on not only those regions that are in lockdown but also those regions outside of lockdown. My home state of Tasmania is an excellent example of this. Tourism and hospitality businesses in Tasmania have been significantly affected by the inability of visitors from Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland and other parts of Australia at times to enter the state over the winter period.

It's interesting to note that, particularly with the Victorian lockdown and the New South Wales lockdowns, the contrast has been really stark. It's quite stark seeing the impact on the number of people out in the streets enjoying all that Tasmania has to offer when, all of a sudden, two of our most populous states—and two states that clearly consist of people who love coming to Tasmania—aren't able to come here. I know that it's a similar situation for tourism businesses all around Australia, whether or not they're in lockdown areas. We've heard a lot in the debate in the chamber on this particular bill around the impact on tourism areas in Queensland. Our hearts go out to those areas at the moment, even the ones that aren't in lockdown. The tourism industry is an example of an industry which I think is going to need well targeted, carefully thought-out support over the coming months.

Unfortunately, it's clear that the threat of COVID-19 and the restrictions that follow aren't going to magically disappear overnight. As much as we'd like to think so, we aren't going to wake up one day and suddenly be back in situation normal. We need to continue to pursue the important vaccination thresholds that will provide a pathway back towards normal life. Yesterday the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, outlined an incredibly important plan, which has been agreed to in principle by the national cabinet. It is built on the clear premise that getting vaccinated is the pathway to making lockdowns, border closures and restrictions a thing of the past. More than 12½ million vaccine doses have now been administered, and we are now hitting well over a million doses administered every week. A total of 4½ million vaccinations were given in July, which is more than double that achieved in May, when 2.1 million doses were administered. It is particularly pleasing to see how eager Australians around my age are to do their bit and get vaccinated so we can advance towards the 70 and 80 per cent vaccination thresholds as soon as possible. I know that the announcement that young people who might not otherwise have been eligible for the Pfizer vaccine were able to go to their local GP and have a conversation about getting an AstraZeneca vaccine was incredibly welcomed by young people my age. Young people, particularly those living in the areas of Melbourne and Sydney, who are more prone to lockdowns were saying, 'Let me get vaccinated. I just want to get vaccinated. Let me take personal responsibility for my health and get the vaccine so I can play my part in protecting the rest of my community.'

Despite the progress on the vaccination rollout and the pathway back to normal, there is still a way to go. It is clear that there will continue to be situations over the coming months where businesses are heavily impacted by COVID and are unable to operate as usual. Just as we've done with Commonwealth support programs like JobKeeper, which saved so many businesses from going under and kept millions of Australians in employment, the government will continue to be there to support employees and businesses. You can see that in the assistance that we are providing in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland as they grapple with the current outbreaks in their states. Of course, state governments are also doing their bit to support businesses and employees affected by outbreaks and lockdowns.

One of the lessons of the pandemic, whether it's in relation to health responses or economic responses, is that we need to be adaptable and flexible in responding to specific situations. A lot has been said in here by those on the other side, who think that the government should have had a crystal ball or had a tarot card reading and known exactly how this pandemic was going to play out from the word go. Apparently, as soon as this virus was on our shores, we should have got off the wall the book that said, 'This is how we deal with the COVID 19 pandemic,' and followed the instruction manual. This pandemic is unprecedented. We have not gone through something like this in 100 years, and to be perfectly frank, I suspect that 100 years ago we would have dealt with things quite differently, because technology, medicine and all of these things were at a completely different point. Every time I've come into this place to talk about our COVID 19 response, whether it has been our economic response and the support that we provided to individuals and businesses across this country or our health response and the work that our government is doing to ensure that the vaccine is rolled out in a timely fashion, I have focused on the fact that this pandemic is unprecedented. If you think back to January last year, when we were first hearing about this thing called coronavirus, which came to Australia at the end of January, a lot of people thought: 'What is this going to be? Is this going to be like the swine flu or the avian flu of 10 years ago? Is it just going to be a bit of a cold? What is going to be the impact?

How transmissible is it going to be?' This was something that we weren't even sure of in those early days. This was a novel coronavirus. We and other countries have had to invest significant time and significant resources into research to help us to understand the impacts of this virus and how it's going to affect our community.

We need to be adaptable and we have been adaptable. The entire point of the JobKeeper subsidy was that we designed a program that would be adaptable to the situations that we found ourselves in, adaptable to the fact that some businesses were experiencing a significant downturn in their business, while others were not. We have designed programs that are scalable and adaptable, based on the fact that this is an unprecedented situation. We need to make sure that we have the right settings in place so that this financial assistance can be rolled out as efficiently and effectively as possible. It needs to get to where it needs to go to support the businesses and employees who are in need. Fundamentally, that is what the legislation that we are discussing today seeks to do. It will tailor the economic response and the support that our government is providing to those who really need it as we move through the pandemic and beyond a point where our entire country is in lockdown to figuring out what to do when smaller geographical locations around our great country are affected.

To understand how this legislation does target our financial assistance to ensure that it is rolled out in an effective manner, I want to go through the details of the legislation. Schedule 1 to the bill amends the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Act to allow the Treasurer, Mr Josh Frydenberg, to make rules for economic response payments to provide support to an entity adversely affected by restrictions imposed by a state or territory to control COVID-19, so in response to what are most commonly known as lockdowns. This measure will give effect to the government's commitment to assist any state that is unable to administer its own business support payments in the event of a significant lockdown imposed by a state or territory, backdated to 1 July this year and in effect until 31 December 2022. This amendment ensures that the government has the flexibility it needs to provide timely and efficient support to businesses across Australia in cases where they have been impacted by public health orders related to the control of COVID-19.

Schedule 2 to the bill amends the Taxation Administration Act 1953 to allow the Australian Tax Office to share data with government agencies for the purpose of administering a relevant COVID-19 business support program. Relevant business support programs are those that have been included in a declaration via the Treasurer for this purpose. The Treasury can make this declaration by legislative instrument if he is satisfied that the program responds to the economic impacts of COVID-19 and supports businesses that have had their operations impacted by public health orders. This schedule will assist with the timely and efficient delivery of business support payments to businesses across Australia that are impacted by COVID-19 and have had their operations impacted by public health directive.

Schedule 3 to the bill introduces a new legislative instrument making a power in the income tax laws to make eligible Commonwealth COVID-19 business grants free from income tax, and I'm sure that there will be many grant recipients who will be happy to hear that. This treatment will ensure eligible business support payments are able to provide the greatest possible benefit by classifying them as non-assessable non-exempt income for tax purposes. Currently states and territories are able to apply for the same tax treatment where they have grant programs focusing on supporting small and medium businesses facing exceptional circumstances related to COVID-19. This measure builds on the government's broader support to businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Schedule 4 is for a modification power which will reinstate a power to allow responsible ministers to change arrangements complying with information and documentary requirements under Commonwealth legislation in response to ongoing challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. This measure is temporary and will be repealed on 31 December 2022. Schedule 5 is for tax exemptions for COVID-19 disaster payments. These are incredibly important measures to ensure that we continue to have success in keeping businesses afloat during the worst impacts of COVID-19 and that our economic recovery continues to lead the world.

Australia is certainly not out of the woods when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic. I know that is incredibly difficult for some Australians to understand, particularly those people in Victoria and, to an extent, in NSW as well, who have had their lives go into and out of lockdown. Coming from Tasmania, where this hasn't been as much of an issue for us, I can't even begin to imagine the impact that that must be having on businesses and employees to an extent—you don't necessarily know if or when you're going to be able to go to work. You are at the mercy of this awful virus, but this government is with you. We are supporting small businesses in Australia to deal with this economic crisis. On that note, I commend the bill to the Senate.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021. Here in Sydney we're entering our sixth week of lockdown, with no end in sight. In the last week we've been joined by those living in South-East Queensland. In Victoria and South Australia restrictions have only recently been lifted. There are more than 10 million Australians currently enduring a lockdown. People are doing it tough, particularly here in south-west Sydney but also around Australia.

The most direct consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak is the impact on mental and physical health. Currently there are 286 people hospitalised with COVID here in New South Wales and 53 of those people are in intensive care. Tragically, there have been 17 deaths in this current outbreak. This outbreak and the subsequent lockdowns are taking a heavy mental-health toll. At a time when loneliness, isolation and alienation are already widely felt across the community, these lockdowns are exceptionally difficult.

Then there is the economic toll this outbreak is taking. These lockdowns are costing the Australian economy $300 million a day. When the number is that massive it can feel very abstract. It's the collective loss of tens of thousands of small businesses. That's what it means. Many of them have been forced to shut-up shop. It is the collective loss for millions of Australian workers of their jobs or at least their shifts. For weeks, millions of Australian workers and their families have faced an uncertain future. The country simply did not know what support would be available from the federal government in this time of great need.

This outbreak did not come out of the blue. These lockdowns are not unprecedented. There was no need for this mad scramble to announce a series of ad hoc support packages. It has created unnecessary confusion about what help is available and who is eligible to receive it.

When Australia was first plunged into lockdown last year, Labor and the trade union movement called for wage subsidies. The Morrison government opposed it initially. They were eventually dragged kicking and screaming to set up JobKeeper. JobKeeper is deeply flawed, but it's also a critically important scheme. The Morrison government chose to exclude casuals who had been with their employer for more than a year from JobKeeper. In March, when the Morrison government decided to kill JobKeeper, Labor called for that architecture to be kept in place for those who needed it. But the Prime Minister was living in his own fantasy world at that point. He was saying that the vaccine rollout wasn't a race. He was playing down the urgency of the vaccine rollout while, at the same time, dismantling the economic support that had been developed in case of further lockdowns. If you aren't going to take the vaccine rollout seriously, you need to keep the contingency measures in place. It's that simple.

This brings us back to the real reason that 10 million Australians are in lockdown today, which is that the Prime Minister failed in the only two jobs he had this year: he failed to lead a speedy and effective vaccine rollout, and he failed to set up a national quarantine system. We are almost last among all developed nations for vaccination rates. It's a horrific situation we're now finding ourselves in. This is 18 months into the pandemic, and we're still relying on hotels to act as emergency quarantine facilities. Since November, there's been a leak from hotel quarantine, on average, every nine days. The Prime Minister's failures on vaccines and quarantine are the reason we are in this horrible situation.

But those aren't the only failures of the Morrison government this year. The aviation sector has been particularly badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When JobKeeper was killed in March, the aviation sector was very clear about the need for continued wage subsidies. At the March hearings of the inquiry into the future of Australian aviation post COVID-19, workers from all corners of the aviation industry were calling for continued wage subsidies not just to keep food on the table but also to keep workers connected to their industry and to their companies and to ensure that, once the sector does get back on its feet, we have a trained and ready workforce to stand back up.

Ms Cory Flynn, an airline worker and Australian Services Union delegate, said:

Having JobKeeper or knowing that we did have some source of income coming to us, was a relief … I can't stress enough how important it is for our industry to have JobKeeper there until our industry can get back on its feet.

This is a direct quote from an aviation worker, and a number of other aviation workers have spoken out very clearly on this matter. A flight attendant from the Flight Attendants Association of Australia was quoted in evidence as saying:

Without this support, I would have to have moved back to South Australia and possibly be split from my husband whilst I am pregnant with our first child.

These are direct quotes about the importance of a continued wage subsidy and the importance of keeping aviation workers connected with their employer.

What did the Morrison government do? There was no wage subsidy. They instead set up a pork-barrelling scheme to provide subsidised airfares to marginal seats. The pork-barrelling was so blatant the government had to tack on new destinations the week after it was announced, and we still don't know how the destinations were chosen. I have asked Austrade and the department of transport at the last two rounds of estimates, and no-one can tell me. Austrade pointed me to a few datasets. When we analysed them, it turned out that none of it matched with the actual destinations the government selected. It's just the latest in a long series of rorts and lack of transparency by the Morrison government, and this one is particularly disgusting because it came at the expense of those aviation workers who are left behind.

Just this week, the Deputy Prime Minister got up and announced a new wage subsidy, five long months after aviation workers had told us that they desperately need support. It took five months for the government to react, and the package they announced was only for pilots and cabin crew. There is nothing in that package for thousands of ground staff doing it tough around Australia. This is the problem with the Morrison government's policy on the run: people get left behind. In this case, those ground staff have been left behind intentionally.

But Labor do support this bill today, and we have supported any support for workers and families doing it tough during this pandemic. We have not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. At every stage, Labor has put forward constructive policies and ideas for how we can support Australia through the crisis. Some, like JobKeeper, have been adopted by the government, albeit with added rorting and carve-outs. I strongly encourage the government to listen to Labor and the trade union movement again. There needs to be simple, clear and consistent financial support for workers who are losing jobs and income as a result of the pandemic.

Lastly, the Morrison government needs to take a serious look at what is happening with the vaccine rollout for aged-care workers. At the Senate Select Committee on Job Security last week three major aged-care providers told us they were going to struggle to meet the 17 September deadline for full vaccination.

Debate interrupted.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Senate will now move to senators' statements