Premier Peter Gutwein has badly failed Tasmanian businesses and workers who remain reliant on JobKeeper by once again falling into line with the Prime Minister who will slash the wage subsidy at the end of this month.
Labor Leader Rebecca White said the Premier should have been pushing his Canberra colleagues to maintain JobKeeper instead of badly letting down the 12,840 workers and 4,414 businesses who were still reliant on the subsidy in January.
"Mr Gutwein has done nothing to support those Tasmanian workers and businesses and in fact has been fully supportive of the Prime Minister's decision to end JobKeeper at the end of this month," Ms White said.
"Mr Gutwein has ignored the evidence from the Tourism and Transport Forum which estimates up to 9,000 Tasmanian jobs in tourism and related sectors will be at risk when the wage subsidy ends.
"What the Premier should be doing is releasing detail on how the unspent Make Yourself at Home travel vouchers will be used to support the Tasmanian economy instead of keeping this important information under wraps.
"The Liberal Government has also failed utterly to release details of where and when the $13.5 million in funding earmarked for the tourism and hospitality sector that was announced by the Prime Minister last September will be spent.
"The Premier should have been standing up for Tasmanians instead of just falling into step with his Canberra colleagues and their cuts.
"Mr Morrison's latest announcement of half-price airfares to some tourism-dependent regions will do very little to help the large majority of businesses and workers still reliant on JobKeeper.
"Only Labor will stand up for workers with our fully-costed Jobs Plan which will deliver jobs for 35,000 Tasmanians."
Rebecca White MP
Labor Leader
