Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Jobkeeper Payments) Amendment Bill 2020

The majority voted against amendments introduced by NSW Senator Mehreen Faruqi (Greens), which means they failed. The amendments related to extending JobKeeper payments to university workers.

Amendments text

(3) Clause 2, page 2 (at the end of the table), add:

(7) Page 33, at the end of the Bill, after proposed Schedule 6, add:

Schedule 8 — Extension of jobkeeper scheme to higher education providers

Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Act 2020

1 In the appropriate position

Insert:

7B Requirements for rules that provide for jobkeeper payments scheme—payments to higher education providers

(1) If the rules provide for a kind of payment that is intended to assist businesses affected by the Coronavirus to cover the cost of wages of their employees (whether known as a jobkeeper payment or otherwise), the rules relating to that kind of payment (the jobkeeper scheme rules) must comply with the requirements in subsection (2).

(2) The jobkeeper scheme rules, in providing for the classes of entities to which payments in respect of employees are to be made, must comply with the following requirements in respect of entities that are higher education providers:

(a) the rules must not have eligibility requirements:

(i) that apply only to higher education providers; or

(ii) that apply thresholds to higher education providers that are different from the thresholds applied to other similar entities; or

(iii) that are substantially different in their application to higher education providers compared with other entities;

with the effect of making it impractical or unlikely that higher education providers will be able to satisfy the eligibility requirements;

(b) the eligibility requirements must not have the effect, whether directly or indirectly, of excluding all or substantially all higher education providers from the jobkeeper scheme.