DEB KNIGHT:
The Assistant Treasurer is with us now and, Michael, I know that the Treasurer, he’s been saying that, look, we’ll be paying this off for years but it’s a move that had to be made. Minister
SUKKAR:
Yeah, Deb, great to be with you. Look, there’s no doubt that this is an extraordinary move but we are in extraordinary times. Treasury estimates that six million employees will, in the end, take up the JobKeeper payment and a large portion of those would be people who would’ve lost their jobs in the absence of the JobKeeper wage guarantee or were stood down so for us, this is a really important step in keeping businesses in business primarily, but also keeping them connected to their workforce because we will get to the other side of this and when we do so, we want as many businesses in as good a shape as possible to take advantage in the inevitable upswing that is going to occur. One of the most important parts of any business, indeed the most important part is its people so if they can remain connected, we believe that they’ll be in the best possible position to take advantage of that on the other side.
KNIGHT:
Absolutely. So, the announcement came through late yesterday, how many applications have you had so far?
SUKKAR:
Well, Deb, it’s been quite extraordinary. On ato.gov.au, there’s an intention to register for the JobKeeper payment. We’ve had 100,013 employers, so that will cover presumably hundreds of thousands if not millions of employees. So, 1000,013 businesses have already registered and that is obviously increasing by the hour.
KNIGHT:
That’s fantastic, that’s such a good thing. So, in terms of the businesses, how can they actually get their hands on this? They’ve been forced to close, a lot of them, because of the restrictions from COVID-19, if they’ve already shut up shop, if they’ve already had to lay people off, they can still apply, can’t they?
SUKKAR:
Absolutely. So, they should register. The ATO will then, for 80 per cent of businesses, be able to pre-populate who their employees were from 1 March so whether they’d been stood down, whether they’d already, sadly, had to sack people, if they were employed on 1 March, those employees, they are eligible so they can be re-engaged by the business. That is done by the single-touch payroll system for 80 per cent of businesses so the ATO will be able to do that automatically. But the first step is ato.gov.au, register your intention to apply as an employer for a JobKeeper payment and as you have explained this morning, it’s full time and part time employees and even casuals who have been employed for at least 12 months who are all eligible for the payment. So, there will be lots of instances where – and you I think, just spoke to a gentleman who has highlighted that there’s lots of businesses who are thinking outside the square trying to find other ways to either use their premises and run a business and by giving this $1,500 per fortnight wage guarantee, those businesses will be able to engage those employees, even in a different capacity. Whether it’s the café only doing take-way coffees, re-engage their workforce, keep them connected and again, to reiterate, keep them engaged in the business which means they’ll be in the best possible position on the other side of this to take advantage of the economic upswing which we’re confident will occur.
KNIGHT:
A couple of questions that we’ve got here from listeners. Jessica’s emailed is saying, ‘could we please look at reviewing access for casual workers because we work in a transitional industry and it’s rare for workers to stay with employers for long periods of time’, for that twelve-month period. Could that be reviewed?
SUKKAR:
Well look, Deb, inevitably when you put together a scheme like this, there’s a dividing line and there will be people that fall on one side or the other of that dividing line. It was quite a big step for us to include casual employees in fact most other comparable wage guarantees around the world, don’t include casual employees, they tend to focus on full time and part time employees. We thought that it was right to extend it to casual employees but we did have to put some guard rails around it and that twelve-month rule is, we think, a dividing line that just has to be there. This is a $130 billion package, I don’t think that anyone can accuse us of scrimping on it but I’d say to Jessica that sadly, there’s always someone that falls just outside of that dividing line which obviously is not great for them but a casual employee that does fall outside of the JobKeeper payment, they are still entitled to JobSeeker and the Coronavirus Supplement which is about $1,100 or $1,200 a fortnight depending on your own personal circumstances. So, we’ve really made sure that we’ve beefed up that safety net, to make sure that those people who aren’t able to get JobKeeper, are still able to access a generous safety net.
KNIGHT:
And what about foreign workers because I know that the PM said that New Zealanders would be covered by this but what about the temporary visa or the working holiday visa holders or the people that work in the cafes and the pubs, for farmers fruit picking? A lot of them, they can’t get Centrelink payments and now they also can’t access this.
SUKKAR:
Well again, Deb, on all of these schemes, we have to make hard decisions about who we provide assistance to and who we don’t. Now obviously we always prioritise Australian citizens and permanent residents, there are some visa classes including some New Zealanders that we’ve included here. At the end of the day, there’s always got to be some guard rails and some dividing lines on these programmes, regardless of how big they are, including this one and that’s just the reality of the situation.
KNIGHT:
Good to get some clarity. Now Don’s got a question for us as well. Don, what’s your question for Michael Sukkar? Caller: G’day Michael. Thank you very much for taking my call. I’m a small business owner from Queensland and first of all, I’d like to say thank you for this opportunity. Without this money, I would’ve been laying off three people within the next two weeks. But my question is that we’re trying to sort out how we deal with the hours that we ask our staff to work in the interim. Do we as employers, have to take out tax from the $1,500 JobSeeker allowance and do we have to pay the super guarantee on top of that?
KNIGHT:
All right, good question, Don.
SUKKAR:
So, no, super guarantee doesn’t apply to the $1,500 payment but the amount is taxable so it is a taxable amount the $1,500 but the super guarantee is not applied to that amount.
KNIGHT:
All right, there you go. Look, we know that your time is limited, we’ll let you go but we thank you for joining us, Michael Sukkar, to give some clarity on a couple of those issues. We’ve had lots of calls and emails and they’re still coming in but it’s great that you’ve created this payment and no doubt we’ll look at that light at the end of the tunnel for everyone.
SUKKAR:
Thanks for explaining it to all your listeners, Deb, I really appreciate it.
KNIGHT:
Assistant Treasure there, Michael Sukkar.