700,000 WORKERS IN INSECURE WORK SACKED BECAUSE OF GAPS IN JOBKEEPER

BRENDAN O’CONNOR MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND INDUSTRY SHADOW MINISTER FOR SCIENCE
SHADOW MINISTER FOR SMALL AND FAMILY BUSINESS
MEMBER FOR GORTON
 
TONY BURKE MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE ARTS
MANAGER OF OPPOSITION BUSINESS
MEMBER FOR WATSON
 

Hundreds of thousands of casuals have lost their job because of deliberate design issues with the JobKeeper program.
 
According to the Australia Institute, more than 700,000 workers ineligible for JobKeeper have been dismissed from their jobs because of the insecure nature of their work.
 
The Government should never have deliberately excluded millions of workers from JobKeeper, including many casual workers in industries that have been hardest-hit by Government restrictions. 
 
JobKeeper 2.0 fails to address some of these original flaws in the scheme and does nothing to create jobs for the hundreds of thousands of workers that have already lost their jobs, despite Treasury forecasting even higher unemployment in the JobKeeper review.  
 
We don’t want to see unemployment any higher than it has to be and the government has missed an opportunity to put the brakes on unemployment by not broadening Jobkeeper to include those that missed out on the original subsidy. With the stroke of a pen the Treasurer can right this wrong and keep more Australians connected to their job.  
 
We don’t want to see a jobless recovery where even more Australians are left behind and held back.
 
THURSDAY, 23 JULY 2020