JOURNALIST:
… through Parliament this week. Are you expecting Labor to back it in or do you think you’re going to have to find the support of the crossbenchers to get it over the line, the changes that is?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, the Labor Party should be supporting our JobKeeper legislation. To do otherwise would threaten the recovery. Labor’s amendments will cost jobs. What we have done is put in place a Bill that will help see the flexibility in the workplace continue for distressed businesses. JobKeeper has been a remarkable program. More than 3.5 million Australian workers are benefitting right now and about a million businesses. And it’s helping to maintain that formal connection between employers and employees. And around 80 per cent of JobKeeper businesses have said that the labour market flexibility through the IR changes has helped them remain in business through this crisis.
JOURNALIST:
Well, Labor, they seem to be suggesting that if their amendments don’t go through, that some employees could end up becoming worse off because they’d be earning less than what JobKeeper offers.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, they’re not comparing apples with apples. You’ve got to talk about a JobKeeper business which is those that will continue to see their turnover down by either more than 30 per cent or more than 50 per cent, and they will still continue to see those payments to those businesses for their employees. Then there are businesses that are still distressed but their turnover is down between 10 and 30 per cent. And that’s where we’ve made some amendments. But the protections are in place for the worker through the Fair Work Commission, whether it’s around unfair dismissals, whether it’s around occupational health and safety, or more general protections.
JOURNALIST:
And these are protections that are in until March of next year for JobKeeper, is that right?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
The JobKeeper program is going to be legislated until the end of March next year. It’s an extension of an extra six months.
JOURNALIST:
Is JobKeeper making it easier for states to keep their borders closed?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well ultimately JobKeeper is supporting Australians who need our support, and it’s been a remarkable program, and they’re the words of the Governor of the Reserve Bank. The issue of borders is a different one, and it’s there we do need a change. Right now, when it comes to borders, we’re seeing too much confusion and too much cruelty, and not enough compassion and not enough common sense. And that is why the Prime Minister is determined to get a definition based on medical advice of what is a hotspot. That hotspot will be based on metrics, it will be more transparent, it will also ensure a more targeted response, so we don’t see a repeat of the tragedy that we’ve seen in recent days where a woman lost her child to be.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think that by the end of this week in the National Cabinet there will be a definition of what constitutes a hot spot?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well again, the Prime Minister is determined to have a definition of a hot spot. Whether the National Cabinet endorses it or not is to be seen. But certainly, ours will be based on medical advice, and National Cabinet had asked the AHPPC to look at this very issue.
JOURNALIST:
If borders are still closed in March when JobKeeper runs out, do you think the responsibility for providing that sort of support should then fall to the states?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well I don’t expect the borders to be closed until March. We need a more flexible arrangement around borders. I mean, it’s important for our economy but it’s also important to better health outcomes for many people who live on those borders, better educational outcomes. I mean, how is it acceptable that a Victorian teacher two kilometres from the South Australian border is deemed not to be an essential worker so they can’t get to teaching their class? How is that acceptable?
JOURNALIST:
If help is still needed beyond March in terms of wage support, could JobKeeper be extended?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
I’m not crossing that bridge right now. What I’m focused on is ensuring that we get people back to work. That’s going to be the focus of the Budget, and we’re already starting to see that of the 1.3 million people who either lost their job or went down to zero hours from the start of the crisis, around 700,000 are now back in a job. 58 per cent of the 340,000 jobs created in the last two months are jobs that went to women, 44 per cent of those jobs have gone to young people. So we are starting to see a recovery outside of Victoria.
JOURNALIST:
Just before we let you go. GDP figures are out this week, what are you expecting?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well the median market expectation is a fall of between 6 and 7 per cent. It’s not as great a fall as we’ve seen in other nations, with the United Kingdom seeing a fall of more than 20 per cent, in France around 14 per cent, in the United States and in Germany around 10 per cent. But we’re expecting to see falls in consumption, we’re expecting to see falls in dwelling investment and falls in business investment. These are very tough times for the Australian economy, but the Australian economy is remarkably resilient.
JOURNALIST:
On the GDP, do you reckon a lot of that, the figure that we’re going to be seeing, is a lot of it going to be driven by the lockdown in Victoria?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well ultimately Victoria is a massive drag on the national economic recovery. Up to 400,000 jobs are expected to be lost as a result of the restrictions in Victoria, and a hit to GDP of between 10 and 12 billion dollars. In Victoria we have seen a litany of failures. Obviously with quarantine being the most obvious, and Victorians have seen the ‘what’ but they haven’t heard the ‘how’ and the ‘why’, and they have to wait until November for the enquiry to come back and that is a long way away. In the meantime, hundreds of people have lost their lives and hundreds of thousands are expected to lose their jobs. Obviously we’ve also seen testing and tracing in Victoria which has not been up to the standard of other states. We saw the rejection of the offer from the ADF of assistance, and we’ve heard from no lesser authority than the Australian Medical Association, the AMA, that in Victoria it’s been like watching a slow car crash occurring.
JOURNALIST:
There were some figures in today’s Herald Sun, $300-$400 million a day are being lost out of the Victorian economy. Do you agree with those figures?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well the costs are immense. Treasury have said $10-12 billion is the hit to the Australian economy over the September quarter. But what we saw from Daniel Andrews and announcing an expectation that he would get another 12 months in the state of emergency, was complete overreach. It showed that he hadn’t heard the concerns of the people of Victoria who are subject to curfews, who can’t move greater than 5 kilometres from their home. They were stuck in their home 23 hours a day, families who can’t go to work, grandparents who can’t see grandchildren and kids who are separated from their friends.
JOURNALIST:
On the state of emergency, it appears that Daniel Andrews may find enough support to get a six month extension. Are you happy with that?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well again, that feels like a very long time. Victorians want to hear more about the message of hope from their leader in Victoria, from the Premier. They don’t want to hear about a longer road in, they want to hear about the road out. Now we’re only two weeks away from the end of the stage 4 restrictions, or the expectation that the stage 4 restrictions will end. Yet Victorians are in the dark. They don’t know what happens next. They haven’t been told if their kids are going to school, or if businesses are going to reopen, and it’s just not fair to the people of Victoria that they are being kept in the dark. The impact of these decisions that the state government are taking is huge on people’s mental wellbeing and mental health, but also on the economy recovery. It’s a signal as to what the Premier sees for the future of the state. We want to welcome back investment, we want businesses to reopen, we want people to go back to work in a Covid-safe way. They need to hear more of the message of hope, they need to hear more about the road out and less about the longer road in.
JOURNALIST:
How much has Victorian’s lockdown set us back in terms of our economic recovery?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Very significantly, very significantly. Since the 1st June, 95 percent of all new Covid cases in Australia have come from one state; Victoria. 99 per cent of all Covid-related deaths have come from one state; Victoria. And what people want to hear is about how Victoria will get out of this crisis, and how people get back to work, how families can be reunited, and how life can get back to normal. And they need an explanation about the bungle of hotel quarantine. We’ve heard expert medical advice to the enquiry that 99 per cent of cases could be traced back to those quarantine failures, it’s been a litany of failures.
JOURNALIST:
Just very quickly on state of the emergency, would you prefer that the Andrew’s Government didn’t have any extension to state of emergency and maybe just eased restrictions to stage 3 or something like that?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Again it’s for him to explain to the people of Victoria about the reason why he needs to extend the state of emergency. I mean, Parliament is not sitting. The one time that he fronted up to hear from his fellow Parliamentarians and to be questioned by them, he stumbled over the ADF answer and it was very clear where we heard from Linda Reynolds that the offer was on the table to Victoria. It’s a devastating situation in Victoria, it’s heartbreaking, and people of Victoria are really hurting right now.
JOURNALIST:
Alright thanks Josh, thank you.