Albanese wants JobKeeper to continue

OPPOSITION Leader Anthony Albanese says JobKeeper was a good idea when it was introduced and is still a good idea now, and doubts if the Coalition’s aviation and tourism support package will be enough to replace it.

Speaking in Torquay on March 11 ahead of a roundtable with tourism operators and representatives of tourism bodies from the Geelong region, Mr Albanese said the $1.2 billion package announced that day that will support (among other measures) half-price tickets to Avalon Airport was not a subsidy for tourism operators nor an aviation strategy.

“This is a short-term, just for three months, support for aviation, but there’s no announcement today for tourism operators – everyone from providers of tours, to hotels, to events, and it’s disappointing in that respect,” he said.

Mr Albanese said some of the support for international aviation was welcome, but Australian airlines had suffered considerably through COVID-19.

“Qantas have lost 8,500 employees, Virgin have had their staff cut in half, so there’s already been very significant losses and what we need to make sure is that if we’re looking at sustainable jobs growth, how do we do that?,” he asked.

“In the region here, obviously tourism is an important part of that, but a lot of the opportunities that are there on the Great Ocean Road rely on international tourism, not just domestic.”

The Coalition has consistently said JobKeeper will end on March 28, but Mr Albanese said it should only end when the conditions that necessitated its introduction “objectively stop”.

“The Coalition opposed JobKeeper in the beginning, they opposed the idea of wage subsidies and (Prime Minister) Scott Morrison said they were a dangerous idea,” Mr Albanese said.

“We consistently said that you needed to keep the relationship between employers and employees and the way to do that was through some form of wage subsidy.

“The reason why JobKeeper was a good idea, why wage subsidies were a good idea, is still there, which is a reduction in turnover and revenue for a whole range of companies.

“All that ends on March 28, and there’s so many companies, particularly in the tourism sector, that won’t get any support at all from today’s announcement.

“We’ve said of course it shouldn’t continue forever, it needs to stop at some point, but not when the reasons are still there, particularly for areas of the tourism sector that rely on international travel, which explains why they’ve got this reduction in revenue.”