Budget 2020: ‘$40 a day is not enough’, says Jane Halton
The pre-budget QandA showdown has seen mud thrown from all sides around the future of economic support and the failure of the government to help those hardest hit.
The biggest budget for a generation has seen a bumper discussion by panellists, politicians and economists of pandemic problems on Monday’s QandA on ABC TV.
Discussion ranged from fights over JobKeeper and JobSeeker, to demands that more be done to keep women in the workforce.
Tonight, #QandA is discussing the budget with @NaomiSimson, @SenatorHume, @JEChalmers, Jane Halton, and @nickihutley. Tune-in at 9.35pm AEST on @ABCTV and iview pic.twitter.com/G57D7oPB5K
— QandA (@QandA) October 4, 2020
In the government’s corner, Victorian senator and Superannuation Minister Jane Hume locked in behind moves to cut back welfare payments alongside bringing forward tax cuts.
While speaking for the Labor Party, opposition Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers harangued the government for failing to provide for enough people by opening their superannuation for withdrawals.
Senator Hume reminded the audience the tax cuts the government was now all but set to bring forward were “already legislated”.
But Deloitte Access Economics senior partner Nicki Hutley said they would only go to entrenching inequality in the tax code, noting the government was playing games with how it was presenting the outcome.
“You can manipulate the way you present these tax cuts to say they’re fair and even under Stage 3 that the top 10 per cent will still be paying a certain percentage of the tax base,” she said.
“If you flatten the tax rate, by definition it is less fair, less progressive. Is that who we want to be?”
Mr Chalmers locked in behind Stage 1 and 2 of the tax cuts package, but said it was important to remember the cuts were coming just as thousands were about to be taken off higher rates of government income support.
“If there are to be tax cuts, directed to people on low and middle incomes, they are more likely to be spent in the economy, and people are more likely to need that additional help,” he said.
“We haven’t been supportive of the third stage, because that third stage is the least responsible, least affordable, least fair and least likely to be effective,” he said.
“A worker who might be getting $50 a fortnight out of these tax cuts, if we’re predicting what might happen tomorrow night, many of them, millions of them, have just lost $300 a fortnight in JobKeeper. So they’re $250 in the hole.”
Did any of our panel make a claim that needs fact-checking? Refer it to the experts using #FactCheck #QandA
— QandA (@QandA) October 5, 2020
But Senator Hume said JobKeeper had been extended and that it should “give comfort to people who are looking for work”.
“It is important to find the right balances between incentivising people to get back out to work and go and look for work as well as providing that important social safety net that’s underpinned by a sense of decency and fairness,” she said.
But when questioned by an audience member on whether the government would boost post-pandemic welfare payments beyond their pre-pandemic $40-a-day level, Senator Hume refused to provide an answer.
“What the permanent amount will be, what the change in the structure of JobSeeker will be, will be announced later in the year. That will take into account the economic circumstances that we find ourselves in at the time,” she said.
But former head of the Department of Finance and co-chair of the international committee of the World Health Organisation seeking a COVID-19 vaccine, Jane Halton, said $40 was not enough.
“We’ve known that. I have been saying this now for the last couple of years. It is just time we actually got with the program and actually dealt with it, because we cannot ask people in this day and age to live on $40 a day,” she said.
“I understand the need to be fiscally responsible. We are looking here to give people confidence as we come out of what’s been a really difficult time for people. I really feel for people who are really worried about December. Because they fear going back to $40 a day.”
If someone is forced to use their super to survive ð¢ ð±ð¢ð¯ð¥ð¦ð®ðªð¤ then the government has failed. #Qanda
— Australian Unions (@unionsaustralia) October 5, 2020
But the plight of those caught outside government support was front and centre of the debate in the story of Melbourne couple David Coddington and his partner Marco, both of whom had been stood down from work.
Mr Coddington said their situation was worsened as his partner was not entitled to any support.
“Fifteen-hundred dollars a fortnight, paying rent, living in a major city, that’s not going to go far enough,” Mr Coddington told the panel, noting both of them had been forced to drain their superannuation.
“We need that to live on until the hospitality or personal training opens up. It will be nine months by the end from when we lost our jobs to maybe working again.”
“Put yourself in Marco’s shoes. He pays tax. He is an Australian person, he is living here. Why isn’t the government sort of helping them out more? Where’s that leave us in the future?”
Senator Hume defended the government’s actions.
“People have been given a choice, whether they want to access their superannuation and some have taken that up,” she said.
Mr Coddington’s story was followed by that of Zaki Haidari, an Afghan refugee, who too found himself unsupported by the government, something Senator Hume said she herself thought “should be considered differently”.
Zaki is a refugee on a temporary protection visa, which excludes him from JobKeeper and JobSeeker. Zaki asks, âwill this Budget continue to leave us behind too?â #QandA pic.twitter.com/If2HnzNOo8
— QandA (@QandA) October 5, 2020
But Mr Chalmers branded the superannuation minister’s spruiking of the program shameful.
“A young worker who’s taken out $20,000 might be $100,000 worse off in retirement. That’s something that the minister should be ashamed of,” he said.
“We have a minister whose only achievement seems to have been to destroy the retirement incomes of too many workers.
“The reason that happened is because the government hasn’t supported enough workers in our economy.
“Marco’s situation – but also aviation workers, arts and entertainment, a million casuals, all left out and left behind by the government, having to ruin and raid their nest egg in response. It’s not something that the minister should be proud of.”
The government views 2.8 million people having had no alternative but to access their superannuation as a âsuccessâ, whereas it should be seen as a failure of the government to provide an adequate safety net for them #QandA #auspol
— Alex Joiner (@IFM_Economist) October 5, 2020
Ms Hutley said the arguments around rates of JobKeeper failed to acknowledge how many workers had been left out.
“There are too many Australians who have fallen through the cracks. We have stopped talking about them. We are arguing about JobSeeker and JobKeeper. We were outraged at the start there were so many not getting support. There are a lot of people getting absolutely nothing,” she said.
On the eve of the budget, Ms Hutley said too little had been done to help women, who would be the biggest losers from this recession, into jobs that would be central to the recovery.
“Everyone says there will be a blue recovery because men are tradies. Why can’t women be tradies?” she said.
“Why can’t we have superannuation when we go on paid parental leave?”
The topic came after UTS law graduate Laura Czysnok told the panel how many of her cohort were “disillusioned” about the jobs market.
“It’s just very bleak looking at the future,” she said.
Businesswoman Naomi Simson said more needed to be done to help graduates going into the workforce post-pandemic.
“If everybody took on one graduate, every small business took on one graduate, we wouldn’t have this issue,” she said.
“I would like to see in the budget some stimulus to my point of extending the apprenticeships, not just being to the traditional trades.”
Terrific performance, what a voice! Gave me chills! ðª #QandA #IAmWoman https://t.co/9hqmjKBYRp
— Jane Hume (@SenatorHume) October 5, 2020
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