• The federal government has a “ruthless” double standard in its handling of locked-down workers and successful companies, Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus said.
• New payments for workers impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns will come with retroactive compliance checks, but there is no law compelling profitable firms to repay JobKeeper subsidies they accrued.
• “Under this Government there is one set of rules for ordinary working people and another for big business,” McManus said.
  
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has accused the federal government of “intimidating vulnerable workers” by promising retroactive compliance checks for those who claim new COVID-19 emergency payments, while doing little to retrieve JobKeeper payments made to profitable companies.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced the Canberra will provide payments of up to $500 a week for workers who lose hours to new industry shutdowns and stay-at-home orders.

The measure comes as Victoria enters the second week of its fourth COVID-19 lockdown, leaving thousands of workers in the arts, hospitality, and tourism sectors without pay.

Those workers must meet strict eligibility requirements before receiving the payments through Centrelink.

To further dissuade ineligible applicants, the federal government says it will also conduct retroactive checks, potentially pinging workers after the funds have been distributed.

Applicants “must accept and acknowledge that they meet the above criteria with the possibility of retrospective compliance activity, as you would expect as we apply in all of these circumstances,” Morrison told reporters.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus said the threat of retroactive compliance checks may dissuade workers from seeking vital assistance, likening Morrison’s pledge to the bungled ‘robodebt’ system, which automatically generated false debt notices for thousands of Centrelink payment recipients.

“Given the trauma that millions of people experienced under robodebt,” McManus told Business Insider Australia, “there is every reason to be concerned that this Government being so heavy handed about compliance will make working people think twice about getting the assistance they need.”

The new emergency payments arrive amid scrutiny of the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme, which handed millions of taxpayer dollars to vulnerable companies – some of which eventually turned massive profits.

Unlike the retroactive compliance checks promised for workers who receive the new emergency payments, the federal government has taken a hands-off approach to firms which effectively banked unused JobKeeper payments.

The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has launched criminal investigations against a small number of firms accused of fraudulently accessing JobKeeper, but there is no legal requirement for profitable firms, which abided by the scheme’s original rules, to repay the ATO.

Canberra has openly welcomed voluntary repayments, and a growing number of firms have indeed returned their unused JobKeeper funds back to the ATO.

But companies like whitegoods retailer Harvey Norman — which booked a $462 million profit in the back half of 2020 — have refused to pay back tens of millions in JobKeeper support.

Profitable JobKeeper recipients “acted within the laws as established at the time,” Finance Minister Simon Birmingham told ABC’s “News Breakfast” on Friday.

“We don’t go back and change the laws after they have been passed,” Birmingham added. “So we are not going to go back and go after businesses, be they small ones or big ones, who claimed funds they were, under the law at the time, entitled to.”

While the ACTU supported the $90 billion JobKeeper package, and has even called for ‘JobKeeper 2’ to subsidise at-risk workers through further lockdowns, McManus accused the federal government of a “ruthless” double standard.

“Under this Government there is one set of rules for ordinary working people and another for big business,” McManus said.

“Whether it’s robodebt or this new scheme, the Morrison Government has been ruthless in seeking to claw back money from working people.

“But when big companies like Harvey Norman pocketed millions through JobKeeper and took it as profit, apparently there’s nothing that can be done.”

Workers impacted by the lockdown will be free to apply for the emergency payments from Monday.

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