Labor will oppose this bill.
When Labor first proposed wage subsidies to get Australians through the worst of the recession, Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg dismissed Labor’s idea as dangerous. When the Government changed their mind Labor welcomed it.
Labor supported JobKeeper in the parliament and has acknowledged the important role that the policy played in maintaining connections between employers and employees during the height of the pandemic.
Since then a number of issues have come to light in relation to the implementation and transparency of the program. This includes that $19.7 billion was paid to businesses despite their turnover increasing over the same time period.
Labor welcomes any businesses who choose to voluntarily repay JobKeeper if they received the payment but have subsequently found that they do not require the assistance.
Labor is not seeking to clawback any of the JobKeeper support that any business received. Labor will not introduce any retrospective requirements on businesses who received JobKeeper. The lie that Labor would impose some kind of a retrospective clawback is a desperate attempt by the Government to distract from their mistakes.
However, unlike Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, Australia has no public register of firms that received wage subsidies. Labor believes that the Australian Tax Office should publish the names of larger firms that received JobKeeper.
The Australian public deserve a clearer picture of how funds in the nation’s most expensive public program were spent. As the witnesses and Chair’s report note, a transparency register has merit from both a policy and governance stance, we would welcome the government’s support in implementing a suitable mechanism.
Labor believes our economy and our society can be stronger after COVID-19 than it was before and that small businesses can be a big part of this story.
Senator Anthony ChisholmSenator Jess Walsh
Deputy ChairCommittee Member
Labor Senator for QueenslandLabor Senator for Victoria