Andrew Leigh

JOBKEEPER WASTED BILLIONS - AND THE ‘POLITICS OF ENVY’ DEFENCE DOESN’T STACK UP

The New Daily, 3 September 2021

A billion is hard to wrap your head around.

Some billionaires say that they’re part of the ‘three comma club’. In the comedy series The Hollowmen, the political insiders decide they’ll need to spend billions of dollars before the public whistles in awe.

So if you haven’t been watching the scandalous waste from the JobKeeper scheme, don’t blame yourself for forgetting to groan on cue.

Some quick background. In the year from March 2020, JobKeeper paid out $89 billion to firms based on their salary bill.

For companies that would’ve otherwise fired their staff, that’s money well spent.

For those that would’ve kept trucking along regardless, it was free cash for the bottom line.

AUSTRALIANS DESERVE TO KNOW WHERE JOBKEEPER WENT – IT SHOULDN’T BE A STATE SECRET

The Guardian, 2 September 2021

As economies locked down in early 2020, many countries around the world established wage subsidy schemes. Economists know that employment relationships are easier to break than make. So wage subsidy schemes incentivise firms to maintain employment through a temporary slump.

The British scheme was called the job retention scheme. In New Zealand, it was the Covid wage subsidy. Canada set up the Canada emergency wage subsidy. The United States created the paycheck protection program.

Some of these schemes were established by progressive governments; others by conservative governments. But whether it was Johnson or Ardern, Trudeau or Trump, other countries’ wage subsidy schemes had one thing in common: full transparency. Taxpayers could log on to a website and find out the names of every firm that got wage subsidies.

Transparency isn’t a left- or right-wing value; it’s simply good government. It reflects the fact that taxpayers are the people who pay the government’s bills, and taxpayers should know how the money is spent. As former US supreme court Justice Louis Brandeis put it, sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Australia too created a wage subsidy scheme (though not before Scott Morrison called it a “dangerous” idea). Yet JobKeeper didn’t include any transparency. The government provided no information about which firms received JobKeeper. None, zilch, nada.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 31 AUGUST 2021

Australia has had bad Government's before, but have we ever had a more mendacious, incompetent, thin-skinned, secretive, cowardly Government than this one?

Australians are furious that the Morrison Government gave $13 billion of JobKeeper to firms with rising revenues.

In Britain, Canada, the United States and New Zealand, the public knew every firm that got wage subsidies. In Australia, the only reason we know anything about JobKeeper recipients is because ASIC required listed firms to disclose to the stock market. But only 3 per cent of JobKeeper went to listed companies.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

ABC RADIO CANBERRA MORNINGS WITH ADAM SHIRLEY

WEDNESDAY, 1 SEPTEMBER 2021

SUBJECTS: $13 billion in JobKeeper waste; Stage 3 tax changes

ADAM SHIRLEY, HOST: The Member for Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh, has been the chief agitator on the Government's JobKeeper program. Dr Leigh, good morning to you.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good morning, Adam. Great to be with you, and happy spring. Isn't it wonderful that Canberra's turned on the warmth for us?

SHIRLEY: Warming up a little bit, which I think will be positive news for a lot of people in lockdown currently. Are you satisfied with what Mr Harvey has done?

LEIGH: I'd certainly be pleased if he paid back on behalf of the franchisees as well, but the fact is he has paid back the component from head office. He's done so thanks to considerable public pressure. The only reason Gerry Harvey's paying back is because Australians know how much he received, and we know that because ASIC, the corporate watchdog, required all listed firms to disclose to the share market their JobKeeper receipts. But 97 per cent of JobKeeper has gone to firms that aren't listed on stock market and we don't know about that information. We're having a fight with the Government at the moment in the Senate where we want more transparency. We want the JobKeeper receipt by all firms with a turnover above $10 million to be disclosed on a public register, just like they do in New Zealand, Britain, and the United States. The Government's banging on with all kinds of arguments around protecting taxpayer secrecy, and yet Gerry Harvey, the great ad man, has given us the best advertisement for transparency in JobKeeper. He's only going back because of public pressure, and he's only got the public pressure because of transparency.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO MELBOURNE DRIVE WITH RAFAEL EPSTEIN
TUESDAY, 31 AUGUST 2021

SUBJECTS: The Government’s $13 billion in JobKeeper waste.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN, HOST: Hopefully my next guest will not hang up! [Gerry Harvey had just hung up on him.] It's 5.14pm. Andrew Leigh is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury and Charities. He's one of the Labor MPs in Canberra. He's part of Anthony Albanese's shadow finance team. Andrew Leigh, good afternoon.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Good afternoon, Raf. I can absolutely give you a rock-solid guarantee I will not hang up on you. Look forward to your questions.

EPSTEIN: Firstly, it's significant, isn't it, if Gerry Harvey gives back some of the JobKeeper money? That's a good thing, no?

LEIGH: Absolutely. It's terrific that Gerry Harvey's done the right thing. He was refusing to do so six months ago. It's clear the reason that he repaid was the public pressure that has been placed on him. The only reason we got that public pressure is because the corporate watchdog, ASIC, required listed companies to disclose their JobKeeper to the share market, so it really points to the value of transparency.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 31 AUGUST 2021

Seventy-year-old Jan Raabe is a pensioner in Frankston who works as a part-time teacher. Because her employer got JobKeeper, Jan received too much in her age pension. She's now repaying at a rate of $15 a fortnight because that's all she can afford out of her part pension. Still, she's repaying more than billionaires Brett Blundy, Marc Besen, James Packer, Nick Politis and Len Ainsworth combined. They're just some of the nearly a dozen billionaires who benefited from JobKeeper.

Jan is one of more than 11,000 Centrelink recipients who've gotten letters from the government asking them to repay their social security benefits because of JobKeeper receipt. This is a government that's writing letters to people in lockdown asking them to repay historic childcare subsidies.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 31 AUGUST 2021

Billionaire Gerry Harvey once said that donating to charity is 'just wasted', and that giving money to people who 'are not putting anything back into the community' is like 'helping a whole heap of no-hopers to survive for no good reason'. Gerry Harvey called the Victorian mental health levy a 'dreadful, horrible, stupid tax'. Earlier this year Gerry Harvey opposed a 3.5 per cent wage increase for his workers at a time when his profits had more than doubled. Yet even Gerry Harvey has now decided to repay his JobKeeper.

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

RADIO INTERVIEW

5AA MORNINGS WITH LEON BYNER

MONDAY, 30 AUGUST 2021

SUBJECTS: Government’s JobKeeper waste and secrecy.

LEON BYNER, HOST: Andrew, it's good to talk to you again.

ANDREW LEIGH, SHADOW ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND CHARITIES: Always great to talk with you, Leon. Thanks for having me on the program.

BYNER: Now, more than $13 billion in JobKeeper payments were given to businesses which recorded increases in revenue, and that has fuelled a lot of discussion that the wage subsidy was the biggest budget waste in our history. Do you still hold to that?

LEIGH: I can't think of the bigger one, Leon. This amount of money would have built fibre-to-the-home broadband for every urban home in Australia. It's more than the federal government spends on public schools in a single year. It’s almost $1,000 for every Australian adult. The fact is it didn't have to be this way. Josh Frydenberg knew a couple of months into the JobKeeper program the money was flying out the door to firms whose revenues were going up rather than down, and yet he did nothing to stem the tide. If this had been money going to pensioners, you'd bet that they would have cracked down on it lickety split, but because it was money going to some of their mates they allowed those cheques to go out the door and Australia is the poorer for it.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 26 AUGUST 2021

The Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 6) Bill 2021 is, as the member for Bruce has said, an urgent measure which will bring on important changes to allow greater transparency of superannuation holdings in family law proceedings. Like the member for Bruce, I urge the Senate not to attach amendments to the bill that would slow its passage. Labor takes the same approach to this bill that we took to a bill that went to the Senate in the last sitting period which related to support for people in lockdown.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 25 AUGUST 2021

JobKeeper was the biggest one-off program in Australian history, costing the average Australian household $9,000. It wasn't Liberal Party money; it was taxpayer money, and taxpayers have a right to know how it was spent. In Britain taxpayers know every firm that got their Job Retention Scheme. In New Zealand taxpayers know every firm that got the COVID Wage Subsidy. In the United States taxpayers know every firm that got money through the Paycheck Protection Program.