Picture an alternative universe. One where the Labor Party was in government and made a $60b accounting error which it tried to pass off as no big deal. Even claiming it was good news. Blaming businesses for filling out the paperwork incorrectly. If it wasn’t the fault of business it was the fault of the bureaucracy for not picking up the mistake earlier. It was anyone’s fault but the politicians themselves.
Would you expect the Coalition in opposition to give Labor a leave pass for the mistake? Scott Morrison would be understanding right? What about the tabloids? Would you expect them not to splash with the embarrassing news the following day? The shock jocks wouldn’t make a big deal of the error surely? And if Labor had blamed businesses for the mistake, what then? Or if it had tilted the blame the way of the public service? Everyone would have understood, right?
But the above is not the situation. Reality is upon us and in fact it was the Coalition that made the $60 billion mistake, which more importantly than the error itself has meant that its claims that JobKeeper has cost $130 billion and saved 6 million jobs is profoundly false. That has implications.
The real figure is $70 billion, and the real number of jobs saved is nearer the 3 million mark. It is quite a difference.
With a straight face the PM and Treasurer are now arguing that this rounding error actually makes them even better economic managers than we previously thought. Overnight they saved $60 billion! And this argument is why they are batting away suggestions they now expand the scheme to help large portions of the Australian working population who missed out on the program.
Over a million casuals who didn’t qualify. Huge chunks of the arts and entertainment sector. Australian universities, decimated by the closed borders and lost revenue from international students, couldn’t access JobKeeper either. Nor could any workers employed by overseas businesses even though they are based here and pay their taxes here.
All these exclusions were justified because the scheme had to be capped somewhere, so we were told. That cap was $130 billion, but not any more. Overnight that cap became $70 billion.
The government puffed out its chest when it announced the $130 billion, but now wants to quietly push much less money out the door and get away with it.
Slow down and really absorb the following quote. It was delivered on radio by the Assistant Treasurer Michael Sukkar, just one week before we found out JobKeeper has gone out to 3 million not 6 million workers and cost $70 billion not $130 billion.
Read it and think about what his excuse was for not expanding the scheme, and if it still applies today.
“We’ve hit the milestones that we thought we would have, as you know, six million employees covered,” Sukkar said while batting away calls to expand the scheme. “Now, you and I would perhaps be having a different conversation if today you said to me, Michael there’s only three million employees who are covered, it was half what was expected. In that case, I’d be saying to you, yeah, look, there’s more of a likelihood of wholesale changes.”
Given what was revealed so soon after Sukkar uttered those words, you’d think at least he would be prepared to acknowledge that now perhaps it is the time to look at adjusting the scheme.
But no, without a hint of embarrassment he was on the front foot after the error was revealed, explaining why no changes would or should be made.
Now in fairness to Sukkar that wouldn’t have been his call. Those above him in the ministerial pecking order would have made that decision. But he went along with it and didn’t even argue internally for the changes he’d publicly said would be on the cards if the scheme reached 3 million not 6 million workers.
That quote, juxtapositioned against what has played out since, is why the public has zero trust nor respect for politicians. What they say one day is meaningless the next. Commitments are worthless. Their commentary is at best filler and fodder for the media. Their word means absolutely nothing.
Maybe JobKeeper should now be revised, maybe it shouldn’t. But surely we can have a debate about it in the wake of the biggest accounting error in our nation’s history?
The Treasurer told us ideology doesn’t come into the equation during a crisis when announcing the $130 billion commitment back in March. Yet it is ideological dogma which is preventing the Coalition even considering adjusting the JobKeeper scheme now that it has cost so much less that previously expected.
Why? Because the government is prioritising lower debt ahead of higher unemployment, there is no other way to think about it. Prepared to let unemployment rise to keep debt lower.
So remember that, when the unemployment rate continues to push north. Remember who is responsible.
Peter van Onselen is a professor of politics and public policy at the University of Western Australia and Griffith University.
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