Interview with Tracy Grimshaw, ACA - Channel 9
16 July 2020
TRACY GRIMSHAW: Prime Minister, thanks for your time. Good to talk with you. Today's unemployment figures are pretty sobering, but in a sense, they don't paint a real picture of what's happening, do they, while businesses and while employees are being underpinned by JobKeeper.
PRIME MINISTER: These are tough times, but the figures we saw today showed that over 200,000 jobs came back into our economy in June and that's very welcome, particularly when half of those jobs are going to young people who were most affected by the downturn in recent months. And more than half, 60 per cent, actually went to women as well. So that's welcome news, but we've still got a long way to go. But it does show that there's hope that as the economy was opening up again, the jobs were coming back. We've got a lot further to go, but it shows that if we can stick to the plan, if we can open the economy back up again, we can get people back into jobs.
GRIMSHAW: Do you know what percentage of businesses are going to make it back after September once, well, I mean, we don't know exactly, we won't know until next week, what you’ll be doing with JobKeeper and JobSeeker. I would imagine that you are crunching those numbers while you try to calculate what is going to happen with JobSeeker and JobKeeper after September.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, recent events in Victoria, I think, demonstrate just how uncertain the environment is. I mean, it's very hard to know what's going to happen in the months ahead. What we'll be doing is making sure that the continuing support we're giving to people for the income support through these programmes will be there to help those who are most in need of it. It's targeted to those businesses and their employees who are most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and we know there are many sectors like aviation, the entertainment sector and the like who are more impacted than others, and particularly in Victoria at the moment and parts of New South Wales. They'll be affected more. And so it'll be based on people's need.
GRIMSHAW: Let's talk about JobTrainer. Do you expect that it will mostly be taken up by young Australians, by school leavers, for example?
PRIME MINISTER: No, I don't. I mean, more than or about 50 per cent of people currently in vocational education and training on the most recent numbers are aged over 30. Over 15 per cent of them are aged over 50. But there'll be many opportunities for young school leavers, as well as those who have found themselves out of work terribly and sadly, as a result of the COVID-19 recession. So there's some 340,000 places for training, vocational education and training, that we're creating between now and the end of June next year. On top of that, this programme is going to support 180,000 apprentices, which is across a whole range of different skills and industries. And that's up from the 80,000 we're already supporting now. So if you're an apprentice at the moment or your kids are apprentices, then you'll know that their extra support is coming to keep them in that training. Because we want young people to have jobs for the future, but we want everyone who's been affected by this COVID-19 pandemic to get the opportunity to up-skill, to re-skill, to be able to change from one type of job to another where the jobs can be in the future.
GRIMSHAW: You've said that the jobs of the future won't necessarily be the jobs that have been lost. Are you saying, therefore, to a school leaver who maybe always dreamed of being a pilot or maybe dreamed of being a journalist, that they should think about being a plumber or an IT specialist?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, not necessarily. I mean, the aviation industry will come back. There's no doubt about that. And I would be confident too that in media and communications and the entertainment sector, those jobs will eventually come back. But in the short term, I mean, there'll be people who may have been working in, say, the tourism and hospitality sector who may be looking for different skills and we'll be providing those training opportunities. What we want to give people is the hope and the choices that where they find themselves, regrettably, in this situation, that they've got the options and that this time where they may be out of work won't be idle time, that they can up-skill, they can re-skill or for the very first time train when they're coming out of school and there'll be those places to help them do that. But the agreement I have with the premiers and chief ministers is we're going to focus these places on those skills and those areas that our National Skills Commission believe are going to be most in need over the next few years.
GRIMSHAW: The Victorian crisis has knocked everyone's confidence. We all thought that we've nailed this and that we were through the worst of it. And of course, now five million Victorians are potentially looking at stage four restrictions, the worst ever. It is hard to look to the future and be optimistic when these sorts of setbacks come this fast and this hard, isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that's the world we're living in with COVID-19 and we can't become complacent about it. And as a Government and as Prime Minister, I've always wanted to be very clear about that until there's a vaccine then these are the uncertainties that we deal with. But I think Australians can have confidence that they were able to do so well and remember, seven out of the states and territories are still doing extremely well. And even in Victoria, where the challenge is great, we're all in there backing in Victorians. We've got over a thousand Defence Force personnel who are joining that effort on top of the hundreds of other Commonwealth public servants and health professionals who've been supporting them. States and territories all around the country are helping Victoria at the moment because for Australia to win, Victoria needs to win. And so while it is very uncertain and I know people will be very anxious, Australia is doing best than almost all of the developed economies around the world. And while this is a setback, there's no doubt about that and that can cause anxiety, they've done it once, and I have no doubt Melburnians and Victorians can do it again, and they're doing it with the full support of everyone around the country.
GRIMSHAW: All right. Thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks a lot, Tracey, good to be with you.
