It has been designed to keep business running during the COVID-19 pandemic, but small businesses are concerned the new wage subsidy package does not go far enough, and important casual workers may leave regional areas.
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Tathra cafe owner Bronwyn Pividori has kept her doors open through multiple bushfire emergencies and now the COVID-19 pandemic. However, in an industry known for a high rate of staff turnover, she said many of her employees will not qualify for the new JobKeeper wage subsidy and she may be soon forced to close.
"I have senior employees but it is common to have casual staff who have not been employed for the minimum of 12 months, and I have to pay for them from my own savings because I don't want to lose them," Ms Pividori said.
The JobKeeper program is a positive step, but falls short of supporting this kind of business.
- Tathra cafe owner Bronwyn Pividori
"The government isn't helping us out, and it should be. If businesses have closed down then there's not so much a need to pay them, but if you are still open like my business then we should have assistance.
"I don't think the government has thought about it very well. They have let us down."
Ms Pividori said the selling of food is an essential service, and visiting her Tathra cafe for takeaway food and drinks is helping residents "get on with their day and not fall apart".
Her business was even used by the NSW government as a case study example of small business resilience through disasters in the NSW Small Business Commissioner's survival guide.
"The government are doing quite a few things to keep people alive, but what we've got here are people who really have no other work who do not qualify," Ms Pividori said.
"I have four casual staff members who have been with me less than 12 months in a seasonal tourist town where casuals are required to move between summer and snow seasons.
"The JobKeeper program is a positive step, but falls short of supporting this kind of business.
"It is all very unclear how this is going to work out. Once this is over, we have to still be up and running."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the government's response to the unfolding economic crisis was not about "ideology" but "defending and protecting Australia's national sovereignty".
He said the JobKeeper payments will support six million out of work residents with a $1500 payment each fortnight, before tax.
"It will be a fight. It will be a fight we will win. But it won't be a fight without costs, or without loss," he told parliament.
"We do stand in a place, today, far better than most nations around the world, because of the efforts of all Australians. Flattening the curve. Buying more time. Time other countries haven't had and we've seen the devastating effects on those nations and their people," he said.
Eden-Monaro MP Mike Kelly said Labor supported the package despite casual workers with less than 12 months' service not qualifying for the payment.
"I'm getting so much communication from the electorate about people slipping through the cracks," he said.
Dr Kelly said the payments are important due to the high casualisation of the workforce, but said he's concerned local council workers would not qualify.
"They are the people doing the [bushfire] recovery work," he said.
He said for regional communities in the electorate hit with the "double whammy" of a bushfire emergency and an ongoing pandemic, it is important to support the economy through wages.
"It is important the payment gets out there quickly," Dr Kelly said.
"All the recovery strategies were around extra events and festivals. Now none of these things can happen.
"A lot of these casuals will be forced to leave the region."
With the next sitting of parliament possibly months away, Dr Kelly said it should meet more regularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the new National Cabinet is "just" the Council of Australian Government under a different name.
"I just don't think it's right. There's ways we can make it work. Parliament continued through World War 2 with a war council," he said.
"There's a solid precedent for how things would work, especially with the help of technology these days.
"In a crisis like this you need to accept good ideas from everywhere.
"We are not getting the chance to be as effective or engage, because things are different from region to region."
Meanwhile, unions are concerned businesses will struggle to remain open until the wage subsidies are received in May, and many are pushing for the program to widen its scope.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions says it had lobbied the federal government to introduce the wage subsidy, and had worked alongside attorney general Christian Porter before the bill was put to parliament.
"We remain opposed to the restrictive eligibility rules which exclude millions of workers, in particular many casuals and visa workers who have lost or face losing their jobs because of the pandemic," the union's secretary Sally McManus said.
"They should also be eligible to receive the payment as they face no less a financial struggle and should be supported to keep their jobs and connections to employers for when this crisis is over.
"We will continue to campaign to have these workers covered by the JobKeeper payment.
"Australian unions will continue to work constructively with both the government and reasonable employer groups to protect workers' rights, to save jobs and to keep people safe."
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