A new jobkeeper payment of $1500 per fortnight for people currently in jobs, has been announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison this afternoon. 

The news was received by Summit Fitness owner Matt George after some of his excited employees rang him.

“If we’d have had that announcement a week ago, it would have changed everything,” Matt said. “I wouldn’t have had to let go my staff.

“I’ll be able to put all my staff back on the books and restructure the business. Most of them have been with me ten years or more.

“They are all Lismore mums and dads and so grateful to have that wage support and remain part of Summit.”

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Matt George, owner of Summit Fitness in Goonellabah.

PM Morrison announced that the jobkeeper payment means “employees won’t be going to Centrelink, they will be going directly to their employer and we will reimburse employers”.

“It’s designed to not just keep them in pay, but in jobs – and will kick in when any business drops turnover by 30% or more,” Mr Morrison said.

The payment is part of a new round of measures amounting to $130 billion in wage subsides, and is planned to run over the next six months to “cushion the impact from coronavirus” and “share the load with the welfare system to deliver income supports”.

Calling it “uniquely Australian”, PM Morrison said the flat payment was equivalent to 70% of the median wage, and would be the same for any employee, regardless of how much money they earned up until now. 

The jobkeeper payments will begin in early May and will be backdated to March 1. The payment is available to full and part time workers, as well as casual workers who have been with employers 12 months or more. 

For employers who had already stood down employees since March 1 as a result of a business downturn, the PM said if the employees were reinstated, the jobkeeper payments would be backdated to March 1.  

The new payment also applies to not for profit organisation employees, as well as New Zealanders in Australia on 444 visas.

Stay at home and keep moving: Lismore fitness options go online