Appendix 4

Public interest immunity claims on behalf of the Treasurer

Questions for which the Minister representing the Treasurer claimed public interest immunity on 16 September 2020
Question
Asked by
Reference
What advice has Treasury provided to the Government in relation to support for the aviation sector? When was this advice provided? Who was the advice provided to?
Senator Gallagher
Written: 8 May 2020
Initial response to question on notice: 19 May 2020 (Document no. 51)
Department's ref: IQ20-000069 (1)
Have you undertaken any modelling or provided any advice about the impacts that might arise if one of the major airlines ceased to exist, or is scaled back/needs to change its business model?
Senator Gallagher
Written: 8 May 2020
Initial response to question on notice: 19 May 2020 (Document no. 51)
Department's ref: IQ20-000069 (2)
Have you provided costings on impacts to and options for supporting the different elements of the aviation sector in a sector wide response (including major airlines, regional airlines, airports, support services such as ground handling, security, catering)?
Senator Gallagher
Written: 8 May 2020
Initial response to question on notice: 19 May 2020 (Document no. 51)
Department's ref: IQ20-000069 (4)
Virgin confirmed on 31 March that it had made a formal request to the Government for financial assistance of $1.4 billion to enable it to deal with its liquidity issues caused by the shutdown of aviation services. This request was leaked to the media. …
b) What advice had been provided to the Government in response to this request?
c) When was this advice provided?
Senator Gallagher
Written: 8 May 2020
Initial response to question on notice: 19 May 2020 (Document no. 51)
Department's ref: IQ20-000069 (5b and 5c)
Has Treasury provided advice to the Government about Virgin's request for a $1.4b loan to improve its cashflow and allow it to continue trading through the crisis?
Senator Gallagher
Written: 8 May 2020
Initial response to question on notice: 19 May 2020 (Document no. 51)
Department's ref: IQ20-000069 (6)
How did the government settle on the amount of the coronavirus supplement?
Senator Siewert
Written: 15 May 2020
Initial response to question on notice: 5 June 2020 (Document no. 94)
Department's ref: IQ20-000070
I want to go to the issues around jobseeker payments. Are you doing any ongoing modelling about (a) the cliff—we call it the cliff—of jobseeker dropping back to $40 a day, and (b) what impact that would have? Are you doing any or have you been asked to do any modelling on what jobseeker would look like with an increase to the payment or on keeping the current supplement going?
I am specifically asking about the jobseeker payment rate. I was quite clear: I want to know about the jobseeker payment rate and whether you are including that. Have you been asked to include going back to the old $40 a day, maintaining the current rate or looking at another rate?
Senator Siewert
Committee Hansard, 21 May 2020, pp. 21–22.
Initial response to question on notice: 9 June 2020 (Document no. 102)
Department's ref: IQ20-000100
Can I then ask, Treasury, if you can provide the committee with your analysis on the government's announced package for child care? Could we have access to that information?
Senator Gallagher
Committee Hansard, 9 June 2020, p. 14.
Initial response to question on notice: 25 June 2020 (Document no. 142)
Department's ref: IQ20-000121
Could the committee be provided with the modelling that's been done around the government's decision on child care—as it's announced, not…
Senator Gallagher
Committee Hansard, 9 June 2020, p. 14.
Initial response to question on notice: 25 June 2020 (Document no. 142)
Department's ref: IQ20-000131
CHAIR: What happened with the sole trader issue? There was some advice on the website that got removed. I note the review says that sole traders were 40 per cent of organisations and 12 per cent of individuals. So they're a reasonably big chunk of the people and businesses using JobKeeper. What happened there?
Ms J Wilkinson: You're right—a significant amount of support to sole traders has been provided through the JobKeeper program. There were a range of different design parameters that government was considering. There was a Treasury mistake that was made where we finalised a webpage a couple of weeks before the final decisions were taken and the announcement was made. There were a range of different changes. That change hadn't been picked up. It certainly was not in the fact sheet or any other material that Treasury published at the time.
CHAIR: So it was considered as part of the redesign of the program but wasn't proceeded with?
Ms J Wilkinson: There were a range of different design parameters that were considered.
CHAIR: Okay. And it was taken down once the mistake—
Ms J Wilkinson: As soon as we found out—as soon as we did.
CHAIR: I will ask this anyway, though I fear I know what the answer is going to be. Is there any opportunity for the committee to have a look at what those various design parameters were?
Senator Gallagher
Committee Hansard, 30 July 2020, pp. 25–26.
Initial response to question on notice: 13 August 2020 (Document no. 255)
Department's ref: IQ20-000195
What work has Treasury undertaken to analyse the fiscal, stimulatory or distributional impact of bringing forward the Stage 2 tax cuts to 2021-22 or 2020-21?
What assumptions, if any, were made about the early phase out of the LMITO or overlap of the LMITO with Stage 2?
Senator Siewert
Written: 31 July 2020
Initial response to question on notice: 13 August 2020 (Document no. 257)
Department's ref: IQ20-000202 (5)

Figure :  Correspondence from the committee Chair to the Minister representing the Treasurer, 9 September 2020.



Figure :  Correspondence from the Minister representing the Treasurer to the committee Chair, 16 September 2020.



Figure :  Correspondence from the committee Chair to the Productivity Commission, 20 November 2020.



Figure :  Correspondence from the Minister representing the Treasurer to the committee Chair, 3 December 2020.



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