Scaled payments will replace JobKeeper for workers hardest hit by pandemic
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has flagged ongoing support for workers hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, with a tiered payment system expected to replace JobKeeper when it expires in September.
NSW
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A new system of tapered payments offering ongoing support to workers hit hard by the pandemic is expected to replace the JobKeeper scheme when it expires in September.
On Thursday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will unveil a new scheme to replace JobKeeper, which has helped about 3.5 million workers via a $1500 fortnightly payment.
The new assessment criteria is expected to deliver financial support for workers in industries such as tourism and hospitality that have been impacted by lockdown restrictions.
In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Telegraph ahead of his economic update on Thursday, Mr Frydenberg confirmed the government had been “thinking about options” around a sliding scale of payments that would deliver more cash to those hardest hit.
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“We did take a conscious decision to have one single flat payment of $1500, now that meant some people were getting overpaid while others were getting underpaid,” he said.
“We took that conscious decision because we wanted to get as much money out of the door as possible and we didn’t want to build a new system.
“We have had time to reflect on that.”
Mr Frydenberg, who returned to Melbourne for the weekend but is expected to be granted an exemption to return to Canberra, is also expected to announce an ongoing rate for the JobSeeker welfare payment, which has doubled during the pandemic.
But he stressed all measures announced in this week’s mini-budget would continue to be “temporary”.
“The crisis is challenging and could be here with us for some time, but at the end of the day we have to be very careful not to bake in long-term costs that impact on the structural integrity of the budget,” he said.
The Victorian COVID-19 outbreak caused by a quarantine bungle has also forced the Morrison government to walk away from its forecast that 850,000 people could return to work this month.
“I said back in May that as the restrictions are eased in accordance with what National Cabinet decides then we will see around 850,000 people get back in work, but obviously that was pre-Victoria,” Mr Frydenberg said
“Victoria is a quarter of the economy, the Victorian spike could be costing up to a billion dollars a week.”
“Getting 850,000 people back into jobs in that period is obviously much harder to do because of the Victorian circumstances.”
On Monday, childcare workers will become the first workers kicked off the JobKeeper wage subsidy program.
Labor’s childcare spokeswoman Amanda Rishworth said early educators were being used as “the test case” for the early withdrawal of the wage-subsidy program.
“Australian workers are waiting anxiously for the government’s delayed decision on JobKeeper — but for early educators, the axe has already fallen,” she said.
Faced with an estimated $190 billion budget deficit and a predicted slump in tax revenue, Mr Frydenberg conceded that taxpayers would be unable to prop up all businesses.
“We are working to a three- to five-year plan and thinking about how does the economy steadily recover,” he said.
“There are businesses that won’t survive and that could be a function of a number of factors.
“There will be some operators in some sectors that were struggling before the crisis that will find it even harder through this crisis.”