Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (14:00): The government doesn't want any Australian to be left behind, but it is also true that we will not be able to provide crisis-level temporary support through a program like JobKeeper forever and ever. The commitment for the country surely must be for us to get back as soon as possible into a situation where businesses around Australia are able to pay the wages of their employees out of their income rather than on the basis of crisis-level temporary fiscal support. Clearly, we've been hit with a one-in-100-year global pandemic that has had a devastating impact on our economy and on jobs. We provided crisis-level support. The next important decision is how we most appropriately transition into the strongest possible recovery on the other side. The government will continue to make responsible decisions in that context. The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Wong on a point of order? Senator Wong: The Prime Minister made a statement yesterday, and the question went to how many people he thinks will lose their jobs, as he contemplated in his statement. I'd ask the minister to be directly relevant to the question. Senator CORMANN: The question directly asked, actually, how many Australians the government is intending to leave behind, and I directly answered that by making the point that the government doesn't want any Australian to be left behind. We'll continue to provide, so I was directly relevant. The PRESIDENT: On the point of order, I do consider the minister to be directly relevant. There's an opportunity to debate the merits of answers after question time. Senator CORMANN: The Australian people know that we made the best possible decisions in a set of very difficult circumstances to provide transitional support to keep as many businesses in business and as many Australians in jobs as possible and to provide enhanced support to those Australians who, through no fault of their own, lost their job. That is indeed what we've done. It was always clear that this would be a temporary arrangement, and the Australian people would expect us to help facilitate the strongest possible recovery as soon as possible so that all Australians have the best possible opportunity to get ahead. If they cannot continue in the job that they had before COVID, in the current business that they work for, then we've got to make sure we create the conditions where they can find a new and better job in another business. The PRESIDENT: Senator Wong, supplementary question?