Senator O'NEILL (New South Wales) (17:10): I rise to make a contribution on what was a very, very important motion advanced for discussion today in the chamber by Senator Gallagher. I thank her for bringing this matter to the floor of the Senate. We haven't got many people in the parliament because of the COVID reality. They've only just started coming back this week. But I know a lot of people will be listening to parliament and they will be relying on this parliament to acknowledge the reality of their lives, to tell the truth to them about what's going on and to authentically provide them with the support that they need. Let's be clear. We are in a recession for the first time in 30 years and this government has set up a budget that will put Australians in $1 trillion worth of debt. That's $1 trillion of debt set up for Australians by this Liberal and National Party government. We just heard a contribution from a Liberal Sydneysider who actually believes that she has some understanding of regional realities for Australia and that she's got a handle, like the rest of the Liberal Party continue to say, on small business. Well, I can tell you that I know small business in and out. I know it from my own childhood and from my own growth as an adult as well. I'm surrounded by businesspeople in my family. Small business is being overlooked by this government. Small business is not being listened to by this government. Small business will be exploited by this government. I want to go to the report, but, before I do that, I just want to make one comment about the design capacity—or the design incapacity—of the government when it comes to genuinely helping somebody get a job and genuinely helping a small business. They are missing the mark on both fronts. If you are an Australian who was caught right at the beginning of this COVID crash, the government—who are still the government today after these many months—decided that they didn't want to give you any support. Make no mistake about it. The government were very, very clear: 'Shut down the parliament. Go home. We're not doing anything. You're on your own.' That was their first instinct and their first response. It took battering, week after week, by the Australian Labor Party to stand up for the jobs of hardworking Australians. It was the Australian Labor Party leading the charge, not in the parliament because the government had shut that down, but out in the community with the fourth estate, trying to tell the stories of Australians who were doing it really, really tough very, very quickly. It was the businesses of this country. The big businesses and the small businesses were out there with their battering ram getting this tone-deaf government to hear them, saying: 'You cannot let all these people lose their jobs. You've got to put in place some sort of wage replacement.' So, thank you, big business. Thank you, small business. Thank you for standing up for the workers of this country, because the government were missing in action when it all started to come unstuck. The pictures that happened on that fateful day this year, with queues of Australians who had never been unemployed in their lives standing outside Centrelink trying to get some help, hundreds of thousands of them, and the shock of that finally unblocked the deaf ears of this government. They decided: 'Oh my God, maybe the Labor Party were right, because they are the party of jobs. We can pretend to be, but Labor are the party of jobs. Maybe they were right. Maybe we should listen to the big businesses that have been telling us we've got it wrong. Maybe some of the small businesses might have something to say.' Eventually, after resistance, and a special call-back here to Canberra, legislation was passed that brought in the JobSeeker payment and gave succour and support to families who were starting to feel very vulnerable. That's the political reality of what happened. Now, families have been managing. Some families have been managing quite well; they have resources. Other families, without resources, are struggling. Small businesses, with their houses on the line, with mortgage payments suspended, know what's going on. They know the challenges they're facing, and they're very concerned about what government's proposals for policy, going forward, will look like for them. We've got reports of insolvencies in small businesses building up. We are getting reports that, despite this being the cheapest money that people could ever get to invest in their business, there is a drop-off in investment in business, because people know what this government doesn't want to say: people in small business, with their lives on the line, their families on the line, the housing that they live in on the line, their businesses on the line and the jobs of the people they employ on the line, know that things are very fragile. And, in the midst of all that, we've got the spin. We've got all the job lines—JobSeeker, JobKeeper, JobMaker. I'll tell you what, you can put them all in one big bin, because what's really going on here is 'JobFaker'. These guys are great at spin but not at delivery. Today Senator Ruston, who I note is here in the Senate on chamber duty, was asked on multiple occasions, as she has been throughout the week, to tell the truth about what's going on with the JobSeeker payments that people have been surviving on up till now. So disingenuous is this government, so unable to tell the truth to the Australian people is the minister, that they can't say straight out: 'We've cut JobSeeker. We've cut the amount of money we're giving you. That's our choice. It's the way we think about how money operates. We think that you've had enough for long enough. We didn't want to give it to you in the first place, and now we're going to turn the tap off. We're going to choke it a little bit at a time. We're going to put your family at risk and make you more and more vulnerable.' Day by day, the choke is on from this government. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Fierravanti-Wells ): Senator Ruston? Senator Ruston: On a point of order: I would like you to ask the senator opposite to reflect on the fact that she has just read factually incorrect information into the Hansard. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Minister, I'm advised that that's not a point of order. Senator O'Neill: I am going to make a point of order before I return to my speech. The reality is that the minister doesn't understand what a point of order is; otherwise, she wouldn't be seeking to interrupt. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I don't think that is a point of order either. Senator O'Neill, just continue with your speech. Senator O'NEILL: What we can see by this minister's reaction is actually quite good. There might be just a skerrick, a little, tiny bit, of truth still in there, and she can discern the reality of what she's doing—that she's laying out a con job on the Australian people. She keeps using this word 'extended'. I want Australians to understand that the government are going to tell you, about the money they said you needed, that they were going to help you out with to make sure you didn't fall foul of this COVID-19 crisis, that they're extending their support. They use that word in the most deceptive way to try and convince Australians that they're going to really look after them. They will never tell you that they're going to cut your support. It's only pressure from the Labor Party in this place that has made the government undertake that commitment to eke it out a little bit longer, although they're cutting it all the time. Until this week, Australians didn't know if they'd have any support come Christmas, If it wasn't for the Labor Party, standing up in this place for hardworking Australians who found themselves on JobSeeker and JobKeeper, there is no way this government would have given the 'extension' past Christmas, to March. Just remember that while they're extending past Christmas to March they are cutting support for Australians. The motion we are debating is about the Reserve Bank. I trust it an awful lot more than I trust this government. This government have another set of words: 'mutual obligation'. They make it sound like it's a good thing that you should seek out multiple jobs every week and that if you don't get the right number of jobs or you make a mistake on the paperwork you're cut off. They think that's a good thing. I've sat through hearing after hearing with Senator Siewert hearing evidence from people who've been cut off—hundreds of thousands of families at risk all of the time, because this government set up a structure where it can cut you off with hardly a moment's notice. That's what's going on. Do you know what the government want you to do? They want you to apply for these jobs where you live. So you end up filling out your form and sending off your job application. Who do you send it to? You send it to all of the local businesses, the local businesses that have no jobs, the local businesses that we hear are lining up for potential insolvency, the local businesses who haven't got the time to do the paperwork and manage these floods and floods of people applying where there are no jobs. The lunacy of what the government have constructed, the intellectual and emotional burden for people to be playing that game while the government come in here and say, 'Everything's good'—it's totally disingenuous. It's a deception of the Australian people. It's a perfect example of the spin machine that is the Liberal Party right now—the spin machine led by the master of spin, none other than Mr Morrison, the Prime Minister, the prime minister of spin, the man who is making Australians who are down on their luck apply for job after job after job that doesn't exist, the man who's pushing that burden of managing all of that paperwork onto small businesses that are already doing it tough. That's what's really going on. The Reserve Bank put out a statement on monetary policy in November this year. It's pretty fresh off the press. Where they get their data from is not some spin machine. When they choose their words they don't choose words that they've workshopped to see if they can get away with telling lies. They actually rely on accurate data. This report I have in front of me has used record data from the HILDA Survey. The people who put that together are none other than the Australian National University. It's funded by the Department of Social Services. It's managed by the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, the Australian Data Archive and the Australian National University. These are the people who gather the data to tell the truth about what's going on in Australia, not the spin that this government has made its signature. What we know from the document, from the facts, from the evidence, from the data is that growth in employment, despite the government's constant claims—'It's all okay, don't worry about it. We're the Liberal government; it's all in control. We do everything financial superbly well'—is not good. Australians know they're not doing it well. Australians know that times are tough. They know that their families are vulnerable. We know from the Reserve Bank: Growth in employment is expected to be subdued over the next few months … Why? … as policy support measures, such as JobKeeper, are tapered. There's a very big difference between 'extended' and 'tapered'. This government tells us it has extended the scheme. The Reserve Bank tells us it's under threat because this government is actually tapering the payment and unemployment is expected to grow. The pace of improvement in employment has slowed since August, because this government, which didn't want to commence the journey with Australians, was dragged kicking and screaming to provide support. Now, the government can't wait to cut off payments as quickly as it can and put people back on a path to poverty. That is the government's strategy, that is its goal and that is where it is headed. And that is where too many Australian families fear they will be at by or after Christmas, under this government. The Reserve Bank Board approved the release of this document that states: Employment remains well below its pre-pandemic level …There is a risk that business insolvencies will rise by more than expected as government support programs are tapered, slowing the recovery in activity, reducing investment and placing upward pressure on the unemployment rate. That's what is really going on. (Time expired) The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Fierravanti-Wells ): The question is that the general business notice of motion proposed by Senator Walsh on JobKeeper be agreed to. A division having been called, I remind honourable senators that, when a division is called on Thursdays after 4.30 pm, the matter before the Senate must be adjourned until the next day of sitting, at a time to be fixed by the Senate. The debate is adjourned accordingly.