Acting Small Business Minister, Anne Ruston, appeared on Sky News yesterday and spoke about some of the ideas that were put forth during crisis meetings with industry leaders in the consumer goods space.
“A very high number of the workforce are currently furloughed either because they have COVID, are caring for someone with COVID or are a close contact,” Senator Ruston told Sky News, adding that food and grocery supply was ‘our number one priority’.
“Anybody who is currently on unemployment benefits who is able to work, we would be really keen for them to undertake some really active investigations about how they could help out with these workforce shortages,” she said.
“Many older Australians, I am sure, will be happy to do a few extra hours to help out at the moment,” said Senator Ruston, who also identified temporary visa holders and people who receive JobSeeker benefits as other groups of Australians that may be forced to work in order to receive unemployment benefits.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, job vacancies were at a record high in November with 396,100 positions available, and it’s almost certain that this number has grown since those results were published.
It is believed that the Prime Minister is currently considering which businesses should be defined as essential services that would see people in these industries governed by less stringent isolation requirements.
Why should older Australians be asked to stack shelves for heavens sake. They have paid their taxes, worked hard and often have chronic pain from working – what a disaster for these people. I’m 68 and there is no way I would be physically able to do that. Those who on are on Jobseeker who have no reason not to work should be first cab off the rank.
If you’re 68 then you wont be part of this. This is referring to people who are over 60 and have not reached retirement age, currently 67. These people already need to either work or volunteer for 15 hours a week to receive Jobseeker Allowance.
You have got to be joking 😡
Ruston, ScoMo and the whole conga line need to go. Watering down health and safety and moving around other goal posts to make it look like the situation is under control will not save ScoMo. This is a bushfire where ScoMo cannot even find the hose. While they fiddle around large number of people are dying. Soon they will be opening schools and letting the virus rip through unvaccinated children. This is not just stupid and homicidal it is unbelievable.
No no no no no!!!
Not the elderly or retired. How grossly unfair. Get the young people on the dole to work.
I have no problem with older people *volunteering* to work within their capacity to do so, and have done so myself. However, most retirees/pensioners do not have to pay tax or submit income tax returns. But once you start getting paid, that means you start getting deductions for income tax and, although pay may be low enough to not affect pension amounts, it still requires a tax return to recoup the tax deducted from pay.
Bad enough dealing with Centrelink without reintroducing the ATO back into your life. No thank you.
make the younger generation who are on job seeker allowance do this type of work, as there are many out there who just don’t wont to work mainly because they would lose to many other benefits that are handed out to them. the older generation have done enough let them start and enjoy their life after all they have earned it
I reckon those who are on the dole, doing course after course, should be the first ones looked at, older people would be more of a liability with working in warehouses and stacking shelves. Alot of them have a lot of health issues.
But some of the younger ones who only work short hours could be quiet capable to do this.
So putting our most vulnerable age group into situations where they cannot avoid contact with people in the aisles of supermarkets is a reasonable proposition? This is ridiculous and how dare they make people work yet again for the money they’ve already paid in their taxes? Shame!