Australia should look to the UK\u2019s 80% wage subsidy as a model for getting workers through the COVID-19 crisis, Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt said today, warning that the Morrison Government\u2019s current approach was failing and that Parliament may need to be recalled to fix it.
\nThis call comes following Scott Morrison\u2019s refusal to back the Greens push in Parliament on Monday for a jobs and wages guarantee, and puts the Australian Greens in unison with a growing number of business and workers groups, including the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
\nThe Greens have also written to the National Cabinet urging a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures as well as rent and mortgage holidays, after the NSW and Tasmanian Parliaments over the last 2 days passed Greens amendments to protect renters.
\n\u201cScott Morrison\u2019s trickle-down stimulus is failing to keep people in work because he refused to make jobs and wages guarantees part of his multi-billion dollar support package,\u201d said Mr Bandt.
\n\u201cThe Greens moved in Parliament on Monday for jobs and wages guarantees but it was voted down.
\n\u201cIt is time for Scott Morrison to admit he made a mistake and implement a UK-style jobs and wages guarantees to protect 80% of people\u2019s income. If he needs to recall Parliament, perhaps online, then so be it.
\n\u201cWe can\u2019t just accept that Australia\u2019s workers just have to join the queue for Centrelink until this is all over. Every job that we lose now we need to rebuild in future, so it\u2019s vital that we keep people on the books through this lockdown.\u201d
\n\u201cScott Morrison\u2019s offering is a weak approach that like so many other Liberal policies, heavily favours people on higher incomes, because low-paid workers are less likely to get government support. If a worker earns less than the tax free threshold of $18,000, the employer gets no financial benefit, so those workers won\u2019t be kept on.
\n\u201cAdopting the UK model would result in employers receiving five times more for the average working Australian than the government\u2019s current policy, and they\u2019ll get it now, not in five months\u2019 time.
\n\u201cThe ACTU has rightly pointed to the UK\u2019s model as a far superior scheme, and the Greens back them in all the way.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re also deeply concerned about reports of half measures around keeping people in housing. As of this morning, we\u2019ve heard from tens of thousands of people who fear they will be kicked onto the streets.
\n\u201cWe need rent and mortgage holidays and a ban on evictions right now to ensure that people can keep a roof over their heads.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re in a pandemic, and this is not the time for half measures.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australia should look to the UK\u2019s 80% wage subsidy as a model for getting workers through the COVID-19 crisis, Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt said today, warning that the Morrison Government\u2019s current approach was failing and that Parliament may need to be recalled to fix it. This call comes following Scott Morrison\u2019s refusal … Continue reading “Greens call for 80% Wage Guarantee, rent and mortgage holidays”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}