31/03/2020

This is our second edition of the Federal, State and Territory Governments stimulus packages.  The Federal Government alone, in the space of three weeks, has committed to spending for a 6 month period the same amount as over 60% of the same expenditure as last year’s Federal Budget for a whole year.

Since our first edition just a week ago, the various Governments and revenue authorities have released details of their original measures (including the Job Keeper wage subsidy), enacted some of them or introduced legislation to enact some of them and, as expected, released further measures.  The rapid fire announcements continue, and we should expect more.  As we noted, some of the measures do not result in immediate benefits, in some cases waiting 18 months before cash benefits start to come home. Others require businesses to spend money they might not have.

The focus of this guide is on measures targeted directly at businesses, not at individuals, as the survival of businesses is critical to the continued employment and payment of workers, even with the recently announced wage subsidy.

The question ultimately will be whether these measures are enough.

 

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