SABRA LANE:
Stuart Robert is the Federal Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business. He says the new wage support package is as generous as the final stage of the JobKeeper policy.
MINISTER ROBERT:
Well, JobKeeper, as you know, stepped down from $1500 right the way down towards $1000. Here, the higher rate now for the pandemic disaster payment is at $600 a week. Double 600 takes you to $1200, which brings you into line.
SABRA LANE:
The ACTU says it's an inferior package to JobKeeper and it's worried the requirement on business to keep staff won't be enforced. How will you enforce it?
MINISTER ROBERT:
The requirement, of course, is for when people register today – because New South Wales is managing the scheme and then, of course, from next week they'll be able to apply – one of the requirements for access to the small and medium enterprise support package is that staff must be maintained. So, if someone is applying, they'll have to commit to that, and of course, compliance in the back end where you'll check – single touch payroll data will ensure that indeed the payroll numbers remained static.
So that's the normal compliance run of how these things are done, but it's important upfront that the employers understand that is the requirement.
SABRA LANE:
The Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, is pretty angry, saying it shouldn't take a crisis in Sydney for the Prime Minister to take action, and he says this is a case of double standards. And he quote – to quote him, he says: his job is not to be the Prime Minister for New South Wales. How do you respond?
MINISTER ROBERT:
I feel like yawning, Sabra, at another classic whinge out of Premier Andrews.
When we put in place the pandemic disaster payment, we did that in response to Victoria. I was there in the room in the ERC, building it with the Prime Minister. It was in response to what was happening in Victoria, but of course, we made it available to the rest of the country.
Now, from week four, we've put in place another support package for businesses which is available to all states and territories if they hit week four. So again, we're just building, building our responses.
And as the Treasurer said to Laura Tingle last night, we did actually offer to go halves with Victoria on business support and they turned us down. So, Premier Andrews, that's what it looks like.
SABRA LANE:
You used to be the minister overseeing the National Disability Insurance Scheme and you introduced the independent assessment process that was ditched last Friday. To be clear, what is the problem the Government is trying to fix?
MINISTER ROBERT:
Actually, I didn't introduce independent assessments. The previous minister started the first trial, I extended and continued the second trial so we could better understand what independent assessments would look like because they were part of the original Productivity Commission's review back in 2011.
SABRA LANE:
[Talks over] And what, and what’s the problem that you’re – and what's the problem you're trying to fix?
MINISTER ROBERT:
The problem I was seeking to fix was massive inequity in the scheme, where your postcode determined your package. And that’s sort of sad. Likewise, your, your socioeconomic status, where you live also determines it.
So, if you look, for example, in the Seat of Makin in South Australia the average package was $58,000 whereas in the Seat of Boothby it was $92,000; in northern Tasmania, it was sort of $75,000, of course in Hobart it’s $105,000.
Where if you’re well‑off, educated, understand systems you can pay for a therapy reports you tended to get – well not tended, the data shows very clearly a huge, disproportionately large package compared to if you had a similar condition but you came from a poorer area.
What the Productivity Commission wanted, what the Tune Review wanted, what John Walsh, the father of the scheme wanted, and what I continued to move forward was, how do we get equity in?
SABRA LANE:
Are you sorry for the way this played out? The disability community has been very bruised by this process. How will the Government go about regaining trust?
MINISTER ROBERT:
It’s an insurance scheme, of course, and it should be run on insurance principles. But we need to ensure it‑
SABRA LANE:
[Interrupts] But again, are you sorry, sorry for the way this process played out?
MINISTER ROBERT:
The process was undertaken for testing independent assessments, and there are over 6000 tests done over three years. At that time there was no public fight. It was done fully, transparently, so everyone could see the results.
But unfortunately, what happened was draft 57 of a legislative package that had not yet reached Government, and wasn't fulfilling what Government wanted was leaked out of the agency and people jumped up and down. And that's very sad because what was leaked had nothing to do with what Government was going to do.
SABRA LANE:
But it sounds like you're not, it sounds like you’re not sorry, and you're actually – sounds like you're disappointed the process has been ditched.
MINISTER ROBERT:
I would like to see transparent processes continue to operate with the sector so everyone can make joint decisions. The NDIS started on the bipartisan level and we can only continue to grow it on the bipartisan level with the sector involved.
SABRA LANE:
Thanks, Minister for your time.
MINISTER ROBERT:
Great to talk to you, Sabra.
SABRA LANE:
That's Stuart Robert, the Federal Minister for Employment, Workplace, Skills, Small and Family Business.