The Labour Party waved through Senate legislation that extended JobKeeper for six months after trying to force the government to protect employees who could not get JobKeeper’s wages of A$600 a week. JobKeeper 2.0 was passed in the Senate on Tuesday after the government was forced to make last-minute technical changes. Version 2.0 will start on September 28 and will cost 32 billion Australian dollars.
The accounting community complained that extending the industry relations exemption to those so-called “legacy” employers would create additional compliance and risk burdens. This refers to those employers who were eligible to receive JobKeeper in the first round but later did not meet the 30% decline in turnover and could not receive the second round of JobKeeper.
But if their September quarter revenue drops by at least 10% compared to the same quarter last year, they will be exempt from the Fair Work Act, which will give them more flexibility in managing employees in the next six months This includes reducing the working hours of employees, but cannot drop by more than 60% compared with the working hours before the epidemic. JobKeeper 2.0 replaces the previous uniform subsidy of AUD 1500 every two weeks with two two-tier systems. Employees who work less than 20 hours a week will receive a fortnightly AUD 750, and those who work more than 20 hours will get a fortnightly subsidy of 1200 AUD.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/jobkeeper-2-0-passed-by-parliament-20200831-p55qtd