Workers at Dubbo businesses still relying on the JobKeeper wage subsidy are from this week taking home hundreds of dollars less, as Parkes MP Mark Coulton defends scaling back support in the face of a Labor attack.
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The $1500 fortnightly payment introduced as a coronavirus stimulus measure has been cut to $1200 for full-time employees and halved for part-timers.
More than 1600 businesses and organisations in the Dubbo 2830 postcode had JobKeeper applications processed in June, Treasury data reveals.
Labor Senator Deborah O'Neill took aim this week, claiming an estimated more than 23,840 workers across the Parkes electorate would be worse off from the JobKeeper cuts.
The party's duty senator for Parkes warned the government's cuts would make the recession worse, hurting 6274 businesses in the electorate, with up to $21.2 million removed from the local economy every fortnight.
"The cuts to JobKeeper are coming at the worst possible time for Parkes businesses and the workers that rely on it," she said.
Ms O'Neill called it another "kick in the guts" for workers and asked what Mr Coulton had done to "stand up for businesses and workers" who would have less money in their pockets.
The cuts to JobKeeper are coming at the worst possible time for Parkes businesses and the workers that rely on it.
- Senator Deborah O'Neill
Mr Coulton said JobKeeper had been an "incredibly successful" program but it was not "going to be forever".
The Nationals MP said not all the assistance had been withdrawn, but it was being scaled back, "clearly indicating the intention of the government [was] for people to get back to work as soon as possible".
While the national jobless rate was 6.8 per cent in August, Dubbo and western NSW had 1156 job vacancies in August, data compiled by the Regional Australia Institute shows.
Mr Coulton suggested there were differences between the local and the national situation.
"Indeed in my electorate, I get more complaints now about businesses that can't get workers because some of them would rather be on JobSeeker or JobKeeper than go back to work," he said.
"So I think it is a balance, I understand there will be some businesses in my electorate who are still, have been impacted by coronavirus, but I think we've done as well as anywhere in Australia and that mostly it's business as usual."
Mr Coulton said available positions went beyond processing jobs at Fletcher International Exports, and included health, aged care, education, engineers, construction.
"There's a whole range of projects that are happening that are going to require an enormous amount of workforce," he said.
So the focus in our part of the world is trying to get enough people to move to the area to take up the opportunities that are there.
- Parkes MP Mark Coulton
"So the focus in our part of the world is trying to get enough people to move to the area to take up the opportunities that are there."
The MP said there were still some sectors doing it tough, among them travel agents and airlines.
"But I think more broadly in tourism, from what I can see, with school holidays upon us, the tourism sector in town is doing quite well," he said.
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I have been a journalist for more than a decade and in that time I have been keeping Daily Liberal readers up to date about issues affecting them and what's happening in their community. Throughout my career I have covered a range of rounds and most recently I have been focusing on the business round.
I have been a journalist for more than a decade and in that time I have been keeping Daily Liberal readers up to date about issues affecting them and what's happening in their community. Throughout my career I have covered a range of rounds and most recently I have been focusing on the business round.
