JOBMAKER OR JOBTAKER?

RICHARD MARLES MP
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION, EMPLOYMENT, SKILLS AND SMALL BUSINESS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR SCIENCE
MEMBER FOR CORIO
 
JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
 
TONY BURKE MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE ARTS
MANAGER OF OPPOSITION BUSINESS
MEMBER FOR WATSON

Instead of supporting secure jobs with fair pay and conditions, the Morrison Government’s much-hyped hiring credit scheme could be a JobTaker not a JobMaker.

New Treasury documents obtained under Freedom of Information by the ABC reveal that instead of an incentive to hire workers, the scheme could be an incentive to fire them.

According to Treasury, the Government’s scheme means an employer could sack a full-time worker over 35 to get more hours out of multiple part-time workers, at no extra cost.

A colour-coded spreadsheet illustrates how an employer could sack an experienced full-time worker earning $75,000 and replace them with three part-time staff on wages between $27,500 and $30,000, in order to gain an extra 22 hours of labour a week.

This isn’t an incentive to hire workers, it’s an incentive to fire workers.

Having deliberately excluded almost a million Australians aged over 35 from the hiring credit, these workers haven’t just been left out and left behind by the Morrison Government, they’ve been singled out and sacrificed.

This tells you everything you need to know about the Morrison Government.

Despite proclaiming “we’re all in this together”, ‘JobTaker’ is yet another cruel example of marketing and spin, over substance and delivery.

First, Josh Frydenberg made a $60 billion budget blunder with JobKeeper.

He was then sprung repeatedly boasting these hiring credits would support 450,000 jobs - when Treasury expects that 90 per cent of these jobs would have occurred without the subsidy.

Now, weeks before JobKeeper is cut to sectors that are still struggling - and with 2 million Australians searching for work or more hours - there’s evidence that the Treasurer ignored warnings that workers could be sacked as a result of a scheme that was meant to create jobs.

Instead of a proper plan to create decent jobs and get record low wages growth moving, the Morrison Government has abandoned older workers and wants to cut take home pay and workers’ superannuation.

Only Labor is on the side of all Australian workers - fighting COVID-19, while also fighting to build an economy that is stronger and fairer after the pandemic, than it was before.

MONDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2021