Jobs data review to determine support

Scott Morrison says the government will weigh the impact on jobs from January’s ‘step-change’ in the JobKeeper and JobSeeker programs before deciding on how to ‘adjust’ the welfare payment.

Scott Morrison is in no rush to announce the future of the JobSeeker payment. Picture: Getty Images

Scott Morrison says the government will weigh the impact on jobs from January’s “step-change” in the JobKeeper and JobSeeker programs before deciding on how to “adjust” the welfare payment after the temporary supplement ends at the end of March.

The Prime Minister also used a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra to hit back at critics who say the government’s focus on getting through the crisis had come at the expense of economic reform.

He argued the JobKeeper scheme had “changed the course of the nation” after Labor accused the government of wasting money by giving billions to firms which didn’t need it, and talked up the government’s personal income tax cuts and infrastructure investment.

Mr Morrison said an analysis on how JobKeeper and JobSeeker were affecting the workforce would help determine which industries could be in line for further support when the wage subsidy expires. The Australian understands the next suite of support measures will be formulated by the end of this month, or by early March.

“We’re waiting on that data,” Mr Morrison said. “At some time these (JobSeeker) arrangements will adjust.”

“We haven’t made those decisions yet, and we’re looking at the many issues that relate to where people are at, and their needs.”

The government has already announced targeted support for the tourism sector, including a $76m industry recovery package, as well as $308m in assistance for regional airlines and $50m for regional tourism.

As he unveiled the government’s agenda for the year ahead, Mr Morrison bristled at suggestions he had not used the crisis to make meaningful economic reforms that would lift lacklustre productivity and wages growth which had dogged the country leading into the crisis.

He pointed to $29bn in infrastructure investment commitments, including the Snowy 2.0 project and the western Sydney airport, alongside a more than $5bn digital transformation strategy.

“We are abolishing an entire schedule of personal income tax,” he said.

Mr Morrison said the government was “transformationally changing the way that we train our young people based on the skills they are going to need in the future, rather than the rear-vision mirror”.

“These are the big changes we need going forward.”

Mr Morrison also batted away suggestions, including from Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese earlier on Monday, that companies which have thrived through the crisis but nonetheless received JobKeeper should be forced to refund billions in unneeded support to taxpayers.

He said that the historic wage subsidy scheme was launched at a time when the nation was “staring into the abyss” and that it had “changed the course of the nation”, saving 700,000 jobs after it was announced during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Some countries have gone into that abyss. We have not. And the way that was achieved was (ensuring that) those businesses that were facing that environment had the certainty of that support.”

Domino’s Pizza last week announced it would repay all $792,000 it received in JobKeeper payments by the end of this financial year.

The Prime Minister pushed back against calls for a decision around JobSeeker to be made as soon as possible in order to provide certainty to the more than 1.3 million of Australians on welfare – still 530,000 more than before pandemic struck.

“There’s plenty of time for us to deal with any new settings we want to contemplate.”