Welfare payment retained
JobKeeper rules change
JOBKEEPER will be extended until March but slashed to $1200 and $750 a fortnight under a new two-tier system from late September.
The “lifeline” will stay at the new rate until the end of the year and then drop to $1000 and $650 a fortnight from January until the end of March 2021.
Under the changes, workers who were doing less than 20 hours a week before COVID-19 hit will receive the lower rate when the current $1500-a-fortnight payment ends on September 27.
Tasmania’s business community has welcomed the extension and said it would help thousands of businesses survive and keep workers in jobs for six more months as the economy recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jobless Australians will also continue to get extra hip-pocket relief until the end of the year under changes announced by Scott Morrison on Tuesday, but the temporary JobSeeker supplement will be cut from $550 to $250 from September 25.
It will mean welfare recipients will get about $815 a fortnight, down from $1115 currently, but more than the $565 a fortnight or $40 a day from before the virus.
People will have to resume four job searches a month from August 4, and will be able to earn $300 per fortnight without it reducing their payment.
Premier Peter Gutwein has welcomed the federal government extending both payments, saying it will help Tasmanian households and businesses through the challenges of COVID-19.
But welfare groups have criticised the JobSeeker cut, with TasCOSS chief executive Adrienne Picone warning it will force 35,000 out-of-work Tasmanians into poverty.
She said the $550 COVID-19 supplement had given unemployed Australians “the capacity to buy the basics and live with dignity”.
“Maintaining the rate of JobSeeker at the current level is key to supporting our population to seek out employment and training opportunities when and where they arise in the post-COVID-19 economy.
“When for every job available in Tasmania today there are 21 job seekers, now is not the time to be cutting back levels of income support.”
The government says the lower rate will encourage Australians to look for work or study opportunities, after business groups warned some staff were refusing to take shifts or return to work.
Businesses will have to requalify at the end of September and in the New Year for the next phase of JobKeeper by proving their turnover has dropped by at least 30 per cent in the previous six months.
“The great thing is we’ve got security past September which was really looming as a pretty scary deadline,” Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Michael Bailey said.