COVID19, JobKeeper, The Economy – Mid May update

We may start to see some light at the end of the Coronavirus tunnel with the various Governments around the country (Federal and States) this week announcing a range of packages for different industries.

WA, in particular, has stated that it will keep its borders shut for some time, so it has specifically targeted assistance for tourism operators across the state to adapt and refocus in the Covid-19 landscape, the easing of state regional borders and general social distancing restrictions, allowing some businesses to reopen, and schools in WA returning to mandatory attendance from Monday 18th May.

Queensland and South Australia are similar to WA in monitoring their borders to contain any outbreaks. SA has a business grant of $10,000 per business that is eligible. NSW and Victoria are back to school, and both are working with various national sporting codes to try to get some sort of national league sport back up and running, even if behind closed doors for the time being.

Nationally, the unemployment rate rose one percent to 6.2% however the increase was much less than most economists had predicted, with many expecting the rate would have jumped above 8%. Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said today that the reason for the lower than expected rise was because of the Government’s Jobkeeper program. He acknowledged there is still a long way to go and the economic numbers will get worse before they get better, but that Australians “know their Government has their back”.

What have we been up to

Here at AAG, we’ve reviewed more than 130 business clients to check their eligibility for the two main business programs, being:

• The ATO Cashflow Booster Grants, where we have assisted more than 70 clients and obtained more than $800,000 so far in grants to assist their businesses; and
• The JobKeeper Program, where we have helped more than 40 business clients (many of them thinking that they were not eligible in March, but were eligible in April and May) over the past 3 weeks to successfully claim JobKeeper. We have assisted those 40 clients to claim more than $500,000 for the month of April 2020 and the payments have now started to flow to them.

The Federal Government has extended the JobKeeper enrollment deadline to 31 May 2020, so if you are not sure if your business is eligible, quickly drop us an email to consulting@austasiagroup.com and we can check for you.

These two programs have certainly assisted many of our business clients, so we agree that Jobkeeper has kept the unemployment rate down. A number of clients have remarked that they would have put more people off and terminated their employment had the JobKeeper payment not been available.

The JobKeeper program, which has been set to run for six months until September 2020, will be reviewed by the Government at the end of June 2020, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the review would provide a chance for tweaks to be made to the scheme. When asked whether that would include tapering off payments at the end of September, as opposed to snapping back to previous measures, Mr Morrison left the door open for change.
AAG will continue to monitor all of the economic news on Covid-19 and we’ll keep clients informed of the changes as they’re announced.

AAG Staff News

It is with mixed emotions that we advise that Keeva Spencer-Wright, who has worked in our Client Services and Finance teams for more than 5 years, leaves us today to pursue a career in primary school teaching. She has moved to the remote far north of WA to provide education to a lot of kids who need help and assistance. Keeva started out with us as a graduate, and worked her way up to being the Team Leader of our Finance Team, worked with Nicole Copeland in Client Services for some time as well as assisting me. Keeva has helped many clients with their finance and overall financial positions and loved a challenge to get a deal over the line. She will be missed by us all. We wish Keeva all the best in her teaching career.