Cracks are beginning to emerge in Scott Morrison’s big new return to the welfare state.
Despite spending over $200 billion to keep Australians employed and to expand existing payments like JobSeeker and Youth Allowance, a recent International Money Fund (IMF) forecast suggested we’re facing the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, with unemployment in Australia set to reach a high of 8.9% in the next two years.
A lot of that hit will be taken by people who fall through the gaps in the government’s JobKeeper package. From migrant workers and international students, to entire sectors of the economy, there are millions of Australians for whom JobKeeper provides no relief.
Migrant workers
There are 1.1 million temporary workers in Australia. They’re here under a range of different visa schemes, from international students working part time jobs in service stations, to backpackers on working holiday visas working in agriculture, as well as refugees and asylum seekers. Many are centred in industries like hospitality, which have been hit with particular ferocity by the shutdown.
But JobKeeper does not cover people on temporary visas. So far, it has only been extended to New Zealanders on 444 visas, leaving around 900,000 temporary migrant workers stuck in limbo. Most come from China and India, followed by the United Kingdom, South Korea and Nepal.
Last week, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told foreign workers to go back to their home countries where possible. But with travel restrictions around the world and airlines barely running, that is not an option for many.
The only relief offered to such people has been piecemeal. Backpackers on working holiday visas have been allowed to extend their stays. Meanwhile, most workers on temporary visas will be able to withdraw up to $10,000 of their super.
Filling gaps in the JobKeeper net may be falling on the states and territories — the Northern Territory has announced a $20 million program for temporary visa workers and others not covered by the federal program.
International students
A substantial chunk (about 500,000) of those migrant workers are international students. For years now, Australia’s higher education sector has been heavily reliant on their cash, to arguably dangerous levels. But the economic shutdown and travel bans have wreaked havoc on the entire sector, leaving thousands of international students stuck in Australia.
Many are casual workers, but not long-term casuals covered under JobKeeper, or haven’t been in their current job long enough (12 months) to qualify for support. Over the weekend, the government unveiled an $18 billion relief package for the tertiary sector, which Education Minister Dan Tehan said was “unashamedly” geared towards domestic students.
International students have been told by Scott Morrison to “go home”. It’s fallen on universities themselves to support those left behind — several have created emergency relief funds for international students.
Arts workers
The arts sector contributes over $100 billion to Australia’s GDP per year. But it has been hit earlier and harder than any other. More than half of the arts and recreation business in Australia have shut their doors in the last month, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. There’s been at least $330 million worth of income collectively lost sector-wide, with everyone from musicians, to comedians, costume designers and event security people affected.
Because the structural realities of the industry do not align with the narrow requirements under the JobKeeper scheme, thousands will not be protected. Mark Phillips, communications director at the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, said that most workers are casuals, or freelancers, working on commissions or short-term contracts, who don’t meet the 12 month minimum employment period test.
“The majority of people in entertainment or screen are employed on short-term contracts,” Phillips said.
“It’s very irregular or patchy, so it doesn’t fit the regular criteria of what JK does. You could be working 11 out of 12 months a year, but it might be on 5-6 different jobs.”
Others are migrant workers on temporary visas. And since many arts organisations receive money through grants or other patchwork sources, it’s difficult to show a 30% reduction in revenue (another key requirement for JobKeeper eligibility).
Casual workers
For casual workers more generally, protection is limited. The JobKeeper package only applies to long-term casuals who have been in one job longer than 12 months, taking cues from definitions in the Fair Work Act.
Workers who lose their jobs can access the expanded JobSeeker payment (previously called Newstart), but that would give them $400 less per fortnight. Frydenberg last week indicated the government might, in unforeseen circumstances, be willing to change the rules to expand coverage under JobKeeper. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, including short-term casuals would add an additional $5.7 billion to the cost of the scheme.
Phillips says these gaps in JobKeeper expose the scheme as taking an outdated, one-size-fits-all approach to employment.
“What this says is the nature of employment in Australia is very casualised and insecure, and I don’t think the system has caught up with how people are employed.”
Those who should qualify for Jobkeeper are not all that safe either. According to a story in The Saturday Paper Briefing this morning, one employer offered to sign up an employee for Jobkeeper…$1500/fortnight…if he (the employer) received a ‘kick-back’ of $600/fortnight! That would leave the employee worse off than under Jobseeker…the former Newstart.
There are some really nice people out there…if this employer had several employees, this rort would make a nice little earner!!
Why on earth didn’t this useless government make these payments direct to the workers involved???
Agree. Bit sick of listening to Morrison talking about it when it doesn’t exist and won’t do for quite a while. Gem from the govt that they would repay employers who paid it to employees until it starts. Isn’t the whole idea of it to be for employers who can’t afford to pay wages at the moment?
As Morrison’s government has forced all of these people out of their employment, through no fault of their own and in the interests of the common good, a person with even a modicum of the sense of justice (about what’s right and wrong) would conclude that the government should be responsible for providing these people with some restitution of their lost wages. Not their abandonment to the criminally bureaucratic and completely insane CES.
If a union prevented someone from working through secondary boycotts, they would be in breach of the law and could be the subject of civil action by the injured parties.
Morrison never sees anything in terms of real morality, it’s all about the authority of business to do whatever they like. Morality to him is what he does on Sundays, the rest of the time his Christian beliefs are put aside.
I’m a Christian who believes in the moral teaching of Christ and whenever I am confronted with a moral dilemma I always ask myself what Christ would have done and whether it was relevant to the situation. This is how belief should work. Following Christ is not an exercise in compartmentalizing your moral compass such that when you are engaged in you work you can set aside the teachings of Christ and then embrace them on Sunday to get yourself into heaven. This is what Morrison and his cohort of chancers do.
If Christ were confronted with the pestilence of Sars Cov2 what would he have done? Abandoned the poor and casuals or ensured they had access to the loafs and fishes? Would he have carped on about casuals who are so “casual” that they have worked for less than a year for and employer? Casuals who would love to work longer, but are trashed by our one-sided employment system? I think not. I wonder if Morrison the Moron would have thought like this?
If Morrison’s kids had to line up at the CES I’m sure it would be different. But sadly there is not much hope of that.
The man is toilet paper.
The sad thing is that most Australians thinks he’s done a good job. This is because most 90% of Australians are like Morrison, they have no understanding of the principles of justice, they do not have the intellectual training to analyze situations in terms of morality and above all they are greedy self absorbed nongs. They authority as long as it effects people they don’t like and as long as it doesn’t affect them. The problem they will find is that eventually all of this Morrison Shit will be dumped on them, and won’t they squeal.
There are many visa classes that allow part work by the holders who routinely ignore the stated limits.
However, the 457 is the worst abused by employers, deliberately and intentionally, to the detriment of Australian community.
By comparison the others are a minor matter.
It is worth reflecting on those workers who have fallen through the cracks. For many years now the TAFE system has been run down, saving governments huge amounts in funding. Foreign workers on visas based on shortages of skills in the Australian workforce have been used to cover up for this running down of the training system.
Then we have had the steady erosion of wages and conditions enabled by casualisation of large sections of the workforce. Foreign students have been used to save government funding of tertiary institutions and make employment precarious in many occupations in hospitality, tourism and retail. Even in the (relatively) strongly unionised construction industry casual workers are are numerous.
Effectively we have seen precarious casual employment used to undermine wages and working conditions to the extent that the Reserve Bank is calling for wages to rise and there being a general acceptance by the economics commentariat in, for example the Murdoch Press and the Financial Review, that this is a problem for Australian industry in general.
So all of the categories of worker discussed in the article fit the bill of having been used to improve profits, worsen working conditions and save government expenditure.
But that same government which has drawn in workers from other countries, encouraged foreign students by facilitating their entry into the labour market, crushed the TAFE system, and encouraged casualisation of large sections of the workforce now abandons the whole lot of them, inviting the foreign workers and students to go home, and telling the lowly paid and precariously employed casual workers that they should have saved their pennies against the possibility of disaster.
Charity will only go so far, we are talking about more than 2 million people here. What steps is the government prepared to take if some desperate people turn to desperate measures?
Jail or deport them. Rightists never take responsibility. Rightists always look for a weaker scapegoat.