Parliament passes Covid-19 wage subsidy bill worth $130bn – as it happened

The Morrison government’s $130bn wage subsidy package has passed both houses of parliament with Labor support, after the Coalition rebuffed calls to expand eligibility to one million short-term casuals and to temporary visa workers.

The debate in the Senate continues, but with the outcome of the final vote certain we’ll leave it here for tonight. My colleague Paul Karp’s full wrap of tonight’s events will be here when the vote is done.

Karp, who is watching events as they unfold in the Senate, tells me debate is going longer than expected because the Greens and Centre Alliance are moving substantive amendments to the bill which Labor agrees with but will not vote for.

That’s because Labor wants to see the $130bn wage subsidy bills pass, and if the Senate passes a different version to the lower house, they would go back to the house, which the government controls, resulting in a stalemate.

Centre Alliance’s Rex Patrick accuses Labor of voting against amendments its own supporters want (and indeed things it proposed in the house), such as expanding jobkeeper eligibility to temporary visa holders.

The manager of opposition business, Katy Gallagher, accused the crossbench parties of “grandstanding”, telling the Senate it’s a “crock” that if the amendments passed tonight this could somehow persuade the government to change its mind.

Here’s what we learned today:

• the Commonwealth’s historic $130bn wage subsidy, the jobkeeper program, passed the House of Representatives. Debate in the Senate continued until late into the night, but the legislation was almost certain to pass. The bill creates the $1,500 fortnightly jobkeeper payment to keep Australian workers attached to jobs during the Covid-19 crisis and dwarfs the Rudd government’s stimulus packages during the global financial crisis.
• Australia passed 6,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday, and 50 deaths from the virus. But the daily rate of new infections continues to fall, down to just 2%.
• Finger pointing between the Australian Border Force and NSW Health over the Ruby Princess fiasco continued. After the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age newspapers reported that an Australian Border Force official ordered the Ruby Princess to dock in Sydney Harbour, despite a Sydney harbour master offering to halt the ship at Bradleys Head, the Commonwealth agency released a statement saying it was NSW Health who gave the all-clear for the ship to dock.
• Ratings agency S&P puts Australia’s credit rating outlook on notice, shifting its outlook to negative from stable to reflect “a substantial deterioration of its fiscal headroom at the AAA rating level”.
• In an address to parliament the prime minister, Scott Morrison, said the parliament was acting to protect Australia’s “sovereignty” and ideologies have been “checked at the door”.

While the Senate continues to do ... whatever it is the Senate does, I’ll leave it here for now.

As my colleague Paul Karp mentioned below, the jobkeeper bill is almost certain to pass the parliament and I’ll be back to let you know as soon as it does.

8 Apr 202006.45 EDT

Paul Karp

The jobkeeper bills have passed the second reading stage in the Senate and we’re into the committee stage.

Basically, Greens and Labor members are peppering the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, with questions about the bill, before a final series of votes on Greens and Centre Alliance amendments and then the third reading of the bill.

Labor’s Kristina Keneally is probing the eligibility of a business run by people on safe haven enterprise visas. Cormann responds that the Australian residency requirement applies to employees – so yes, a business run by people on SHEVs could claim the $1,500 fortnightly payment on behalf of Australian staff.

The Greens senator Rachel Siewert asks if Australia is negotiating with other countries to support Australians stranded overseas, and to help temporary visa-holders here in return. Cormann responds that temporary visa-holders are expected to be able to support themselves in Australia, and notes the government has let them access superannuation.

Could be a long night yet, although the result is not in doubt.

While we wait on the Senate, my colleagues Nick Evershed and Graham Readfearn have looked at how Australia is faring in our attempts to flatten the curve of Covid-19 cases.

Their review of government data shows locally acquired infections have outnumbered infections acquired overseas for the past four days.

The data also shows the growth in locally acquired cases is slowing in New South Wales and Victoria, the two states for which detailed data is available.

As the Senate continues to debate amendments to the jobkeeper package, the secretary of the ACTU, Sally McManus, has called it a “historic win for working people”. The union remains unhappy that some casual workers will miss out on the wage subsidy, but McManus says the detail of the bill means it could be extended.

We called on the government to deliver a wage subsidy for all workers who needed a wage subsidy. It wasn’t long ago that members of the Morrison government were suggesting people would have to rely on their savings and go on Newstart, now they have allocated $130bn to wage subsidies.

The scale of this union-won package is unprecedented. The jobkeeper wage subsidy, along with the jobseeker payment, will transform lives and bring many workers and their families back from the brink of economic ruin.

If the union movement had not won this fight, workers would be receiving the old Newstart allowance of $40 per day. Now they will get up to double that on jobseeker as well as no less than $150 per day if they are on jobkeeper.

As the Senate continues to debate the $130bn jobkeeper program, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, has offered his support to those in the Pacific dealing with not only the Covid-19 outbreak but also tropical cyclone Harold.

Australian Border Force has issued a statement responding to that story earlier from the Nine newspapers that an ABF officer told a Sydney harbour master to allow the Ruby Princess to dock.

The ABF has confirmed that it was contacted by the NSW Port Authority in the early hours of 19 March “expressing concern in relation to the health of passengers on board the Ruby Princess”.

But it says it was NSW Health who gave the all-clear for the ship to dock.

“The ABF officer made internal enquiries and subsequently advised the NSW Port Authority that the vessel had been cleared by NSW Health,” the ABF said in a statement.

“The ABF did not seek to shape or influence any view or decision by the NSW Port Authority. This is not the ABF’s role. The ABF completed its immigration and customs clearance functions. The ABF commissioner has clearly outlined at length the ABF’s role in this matter.

You can read the original story here.

Here’s Malcolm Farr on today’s mini-parliament (which is still sitting, by the way).

The mini-parliament was sitting because process demanded it, not because members were keen to muscle up on debate, accountability and policy scrutiny.

That robust democratic activity is more likely to be found in the national cabinet of federal and state leaders, which is scheduled to meet Thursday and again underline that it has superseded parliament as the national decision-making hub.

It’s a concentration of power which could redefine the parliamentary role when Covid-19 no longer is dictating democratic practice.

The head of the Australian Medical Association, Tony Bartone, has been speaking on the ABC about reports of people avoiding GP visits during the Covid-19 pandemic.

He’s warned that could have negative consequences for the health system in the future, and urged people not to delay treatments for other illnesses.

Clearly, patients are either worried or concerned about the potential for contracting Covid-19, they are worried about the demands of what they think is a very overstretched and busy frontline health system, and minimising their own particular needs, or indeed, thinking telehealth is the only option.

But clearly, there is a time and a place for face-to-face care, there is a necessity to continue that ongoing routine healthcare, because otherwise what will clearly happen [is] that the burden of disease will be shifted down the track too many ... more complications, more presentations to emergency departments, and of course more interruption to the quality of life into the future for many, many hundreds of thousands of Australians.

We know that every week [there are] several tens of thousands of diagnoses around internal cancer, skin cancers, diabetes, heart disease, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the list goes on. These are all things that occur, they don’t take a holiday because these are circulating Covid-19 pandemic.

Australia has now recorded more than 6,000 cases of Covid-19, following the release of the latest figures from Western Australia.

WA’s health department recorded 11 new cases of Covid-19 today, bringing the state’s total to 481.

Of the new cases, 10 are from metropolitan Perth and one is from the Kimberley.

Eight of the cases are related to cruise ships or overseas travel and one is a close contact of a confirmed case. Two cases are still being investigated.

The number of new cases in Australia has steadily flattened over the past week. Earlier today NSW reported 48 new cases since its last update, while Victoria recorded 21. Australia also recorded its 50th Covid-19 death today.

Some good news via my colleague Ben Doherty.

An Iranian refugee under Australia’s protection has managed to return home to Melbourne after initially being caught up in Australia’s ban on non-citizens entering the country, and forcibly sent back to Europe where he potentially faced refoulement.