Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 2) Bill 2021

The same number of senators voted for and against amendments moved by South Australian Senator Rex Patrick (Independent), which means they failed.

What do these amendments do?

Senator Patrick explained that:

These amendments are designed to provide a level of transparency around those companies that receive JobKeeper. We must understand that JobKeeper was passed by this parliament on 8 April 2020, not as a scheme with any particular form but as a head of power that allowed the Treasurer to introduce or declare rules around the program that is now known as JobKeeper. The parliament had very little to do with the construction of the JobKeeper scheme, and that was because it was an emergency. Everyone understood it was an emergency. We wanted to get through the pandemic and keep employers and employees connected, so it was the will of this parliament that the program be implemented. But the details came down to the Treasurer, and he basically created an honesty system where you didn't have to show anything as actuals. Rather, you were able simply to project and indicate to the Taxation Office that you thought your revenue would drop by either 30 or 50 per cent, depending on the nature of the company.

The idea behind that was quite okay. Particularly in those circumstances, there would have been a lot of cash-flow issues for companies, and what was put in place was good. Unfortunately, there was no clawback regime put in place to deal either with dishonesty or with people who got through the bump and actually did a lot better than perhaps they might have done in the previous year. And that's where the problem lies; there's been a huge prudential failure in relation to the JobKeeper program.

Amendment text

Full amendment text is available on sheet 1411.