BILLIONS PAID TO TOP END
High flyers reaped Covid cash
BILLIONS of dollars in JobKeeper cash flowed through hundreds of ASX-listed companies ranging from stockbrokers, tech companies, retailers to transport operators, an analysis of corporate disclosures has shown.
The extent of the payments reached into every part of the economy, with names such as gas producer Beach Energy ($7.6m), jobs website Seek ($17.2m), Spanish-backed building giant CIMIC ($20.5m), mall operator Vicinity ($23.4m) and newly listed car dealer Peter Warren ($28m) receiving tens of millions of dollars.
The disclosures, which so far amount to more than $2.5bn in payments, represent the most comprehensive snapshot of how the JobKeeper program operated across the economy.
Some payments ran into just tens of thousands of dollars, while others ranged into the hundreds of millions of dollars, with airline Qantas the biggest winner, taking $856m of taxpayer funds under the program over two years.
“Approximately half of this was paid directly to employees who were stood down as income support while the remainder was used as a wage subsidy for those still working,” Qantas said in a statement.
“During the height of lockdowns and border closures, more than 20,000 of our employees were stood down”.
Moves by businesses to repay some of the JobKeeper funds did little to reduce the cost of the taxpayer-funded program, with only $119m returned to Canberra from recipients, according to filings so far lodged with the ASX.
The size of the financial cushion from the JobKeeper program for some companies was so large, the cash represented almost 25 per cent of the value of the business.
The listed education provider Academies Australasia Group, with campuses across Australia, took $7.4m in JobKeeper over two years, according to market filings.
The company, which has a market capitalisation of $33m, used the funds at their peak to support the wages of 246 employees.
The insights gleaned of the corporate JobKeeper takings come after the corporate regulator said businesses needed to clearly disclose takings from the scheme so investors could have a sense of the underlying financial health of a business.
The Australian Securities & Investments Commission sent a note to listed entities last month, attaching a form companies could use to disclose the payments.
Not all used the form. The demand by ASIC required companies that lodged their financial reports for the relevant financial year before September 14 this year to disclose the market with their JobKeeper carve-outs by Monday.
As well as Qantas, others in the travel sector were among the hardest hit, with Flight Centre receiving $248.4m of payments over two years.
Regional airline Rex was given $29.4m and Sydney Airport $15.7m.
These companies were brutalised by almost two years of closed borders as the Covid-19 pandemic raged outside, and sometimes in, Australia.
The travel sector payouts were followed by casino operator Star Entertainment, which was handed $157.3m in taxpayer funds to cover the wages of more than 7000 staff.
Star Entertainment owns and operates casinos in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
The Sydney casino has been shut for much of the pandemic in a bid to restrict the spread of Covid-19.
Elsewhere, gaming and wagering company Tabcorp accessed $12.1m in payments.
“These JobKeeper payments were used as intended and passed on to more than 500 stood-down employees across Australia in roles related to the gaming services business,” Tabcorp said.
Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the JobKeeper program worked to save jobs, supporting more than 4 million people and 1 million businesses.
“Without the government’s significant fiscal support, including JobKeeper, Treasury estimated that the unemployment rate would have peaked at least five percentage points higher, and remained above 12 per cent for two years,” he said.
Mr Frydenberg said calls to “retrospectively claw back” JobKeeper payments from businesses were wrong.
Without the government’s significant fiscal support, Treasury estimated that the unemployment rate would have peaked at least five percentage points higher Josh Frydenberg