16 News

National Cabinet met in Sydney today to discuss COVID-19 settings and key joint-actions for the upcoming Jobs and Skills Summit.

Acting Chief Medical Officer Professor Michael Kidd provided an update on the pandemic and outlined strategies for combating potential COVID-19 waves.

First Ministers reinforced their commitment to continued collaboration between commonwealth, state and territory governments in managing the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Cabinet agreed to reduce the isolation periods for COVID-19 positive cases from seven to five following a positive test, with the following caveats:

• This would apply to people with no symptoms at five days.
• Seven days isolation remains for workers in high risk setting including aged care, disability care, those providing care in the home.

This is a proportionate response at this point in the pandemic.

These changes will come into effect from Friday 9 September, with the Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment (PLDP) eligibility to reflect the changed isolation periods, effective the same date.

National Cabinet also agreed to remove the mandatory wearing of masks on domestic flights. This change will also come into effect from Friday 9 September.

Ahead of the Jobs and Skills Summit, First Ministers discussed ongoing workforce shortages impacting Australia’s economy and employers’ access to skilled workers. They agreed on the vision statement and guiding principles for a new National Skills Agreement.

First Ministers discussed the essential role of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) as part of the education system and as a powerful lever for increasing participation of women in the workforce.

The National Cabinet agreed on the importance of delivering nationally significant energy transmission projects, and supporting regional communities and workforces to capture the opportunities emerging from Australia’s transition to a net zero emissions economy.

First Ministers agreed:

• Commence work on a new National Skills Agreement in place from 1 January 2024 informed by the vision statement and guiding principles.
• State and Territory Energy Ministers will work towards implementing reforms to accelerate the delivery of transmission projects. Regional communities will benefit from the investment, employment and training opportunities presented by the energy transition.
• Work together on a long-term vision for ECEC to better support parents’ workforce participation and deliver improved early learning and child development outcomes as a national priority.
• That Education and Early Years Ministers will work together to identify priority areas where governments can collaborate to support better outcomes across the system, with a particular focus on Early Childhood Education and Care workforce shortages, and with an update on progress to be provided to National Cabinet by the end of 2022.
• Housing affordability issues will be discussed at the next in person meeting of the National Cabinet.
• The National Cabinet also agreed to task the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency to acceleration skills and qualification recognition in key sectors.

The National Cabinet remains committed to working together on national priorities and will meet again next month.

New independent research from the Parliamentary Budget Office shows that Labor’s Stage 3 Tax cuts will give Australia’s richest 1% as much as the bottom 65% of taxpayers in its first year.

Amid a cost of living crisis, the data confirms that the Stage 3 tax cuts will effectively dismantle Australia’s progressive taxation system, and overwhelmingly favour the nation’s richest people.

Women will get around 50c for every dollar a man receives, further increasing gender inequality, and a huge proportion of the $243.5bn will go to people in the top tax bracket. 

Adam Bandt MP, Leader of the Australian Greens said:
“Labor’s Stage 3 tax cuts for billionaires and the wealthy will turbocharge inequality and widen the gender pay gap. 
“This week’s Jobs Summit must reconsider the Stage 3 tax cuts for the wealthy, or everyday workers will fall further behind.
“In their first year, these tax cuts will give the top 1% of income earners as much as the bottom 65% combined. 
“Labor’s Stage 3 tax cuts cost a fortune, and the wealthiest 20% get close to 80% of the money.
“Labor’s Jobs Summit and the October Budget must deliver cost of living relief for everyday people now, axing the tax cuts for billionaires and funding dental into Medicare, free childcare and affordable housing instead.”

Other major takeaways from the PBO costing released today include:

• The cost of the tax cuts has blown out to $243.5 billion
• $188 billion or 77% of the benefit of these tax cuts will go to the wealthiest 20% of the population (and over the coming Budget estimates period, the inequality is even worse, with the top 20% getting 80% of the money)  
• $160bn will go to men, with just $80bn to go to women

Australian Greens spokesperson for social services, Senator Janet Rice, has scoffed at Minister Rishworth’s assertion this morning that there is simply no room in the October budget to lift income support.

Senator Rice said:

“Poverty is a political choice.

“This ‘would that it were’ pretence of having no room in the budget to raise Jobseeker because of the former government, but that otherwise Labor would love to help struggling Australians, is as absurd as it is hypocritical.

“Labor can find plenty of room in the budget to give billions in welfare to people like Clive Palmer, but nothing for Jobseekers.

“Here’s an idea: instead of handing out over $243 billion in Stage 3 tax cuts for the rich, raise the rate of income support payments for people living in poverty. 

“We are in a cost of living crisis and people can’t even afford the basics to get by. Minister Rishworth is choosing to make life harder and more stressful for people on income support.

“Labor is about to host the Jobs Summit, yet they’re ignoring people on starvation-payments and have no plan to help people on Jobseeker cover the costs associated with looking for a job.

“There’s no daylight between Labor and the Coalition when it comes to the millions of Australians living in poverty. 

“Parliament must respond to the cost of living impacts for people on starvation wages and income support. The Greens are fighting for a livable income guarantee that would raise payments to $88 a day, above the poverty line.”

Greens Leader Adam Bandt has expressed deep reservations about any weakening of the Better Off Overall Test, in light of demands by the Business Council of Australia.

Excerpts from Greens Leader Adam Bandt’s address to a pre-Jobs Summit event hosted by law firm Kingston Reid on Wednesday 31 August:

“With the Liberals sitting this one out, whatever deal is reached at the Summit needs the Greens support or it won’t pass the Parliament. The Greens hold the balance of power, and we stand ready to amend whatever comes across our desk so it lifts wages, improves rights at work, and reduces cost of living.

“The Greens are also very worried about recent calls to weaken the ‘better off overall test’, because this will lead to workers being worse off.

“The test protects workers, especially young and casual workers, from getting even less than the already low award minimum wages and conditions.

“Major supermarkets and fast food chains stole hundreds of millions of dollars from workers through agreements that left these workers worse off.

“These dodgy agreements saw already low-paid workers receive less than the award, and now the big corporations want to make this rip-off legal.

“It is deeply distressing to see even the Labor government now open to changing the Fair Work Act to endorse this illegal behaviour.

“The Greens cannot back the Summit striking deals that leave young and low paid workers worse off.

“The Greens want the Summit to agree on three fundamental areas of reform. 

1. Take back some of the power of big corporations, and give it to everyday people. This starts by rebuilding union membership, removing the restrictions on bargaining and axing the unfair restrictions on industrial action. As we rebalance the relationship between work and care, we must also give people greater control over their own working hours and arrangements; 
2. Government must lift wages. The floor of our wage system has rotted. We need to increase wages from the bottom up, and start re-regulating the wages of the lowest paid and women-dominated professions by requiring their wages grow faster than inflation. And we need to lift income support to $88 a day;
3. Government must reduce the costs of essentials. Make childcare free, put dental and mental health into Medicare, cap rents and build affordable homes, all funded by axing the Stage 3 tax cuts for billionaires and the very wealthy.”

Senator for South Australia and Employment spokesperson Barbara Pocock will be attending the Jobs and Skills summit alongside Greens Party Leader Adam Bandt. Barbara is a labour market expert and Emeritus Professor and is currently chairing the Senate’s first Select Committee inquiry on Work and Care.

Senator Pocock will argue at the summit workers need both a pay rise, and practical help with the cost of childcare, health and housing – things that are all essential to participation in work. Savings from reversing the Stage 3 tax cuts can be used to fund this, rather than boosting the income of the very wealthy and fueling further inequality. 

Senator Barbara Pocock said:

“I am attending the Jobs Summit, alongside Adam Bandt, to advocate for improving the lives of workers. 

“I will be bringing practical pathways forward to improve employment outcomes for women to the Jobs and Skills summit.

“We need immediate relief on the cost of living crisis. Instead of tax cuts to Australia’s richest 1%, the government should fund free childcare, get dental into Medicare and build affordable housing, giving households real cost living relief immediately.

“The Greens will be exercising our review power in the Senate.

“On top of the 60 extra days it takes women to earn the same average wage as men, women do twice as much unpaid work and care. It’s time to fix the pay gap AND ease the pressure on working carers.

“South Australian workers need an improvement of minimum wages, implementation of fairer industry wage bargaining and a plan to ensure women get a fair share of future jobs in a low carbon economy.