John, Normally this would have been Budget week. But the last thing the government wanted to release were detailed accounts
on forward projections for jobs and debt. Here’s the #5and5:
BEST - Anthony’s vision statement
- Trying to make Jobkeeper fairer
- Jim Chalmers’ response to Josh Frydenberg
- Sitting calendar win
- Childcare questions
WORST - Unemployment numbers
- Senate fails to protect workers.
- Tehan’s troubles
- McCormack’s mistakes
- Morrison squirms
1. Before Parliament started Anthony Albanese delivered his fifth Vision Statement. It was held in the caucus room
on Monday and focussed on jobs. The government talks about “snap back” but we need to make sure after
this crisis we don’t snap back to their usual attacks on workers and government services. Here’s a link to some of the speech.
Albo prepares his fifth Vision Statement.
PICS: Alex Ellinghausen/NINE 2. We fought to make the JobKeeper wage subsidy fairer. More than a million casuals, local government workers, workers
at universities, and almost the whole arts and entertainment sector have been shut out. In the Senate Labor moved
a disallowance motion which would mean more workers at universities and in airport catering would become
eligible for the wage subsidy. Wage subsidies are a good thing and we fought hard to persuade the government to
have one at all. But JobKeeper can be much better targeted. In question time, Labor backbenchers Susan Templeman
and Peta Murphy asked about workers in their electorates who received nothing from JobKeeper while other people
received many times more than what they would normally earn. 3. The week began with what was heralded as an “Economic Statement” from Josh Frydenberg. In the news
it was overshadowed by his coughing fit. But think about how Josh must have felt before the first cough. Everything
he has said before: the budget is back in black, you shouldn’t use stimulus to avoid recession, the nation’s
debt is Labor’s fault - it has all collapsed. He is now in charge of Australia’s largest deficit in
history, furiously spending on stimulus, and even before this crisis the Liberals had already more than doubled
debt. No wonder Jim Chalmers in his speech complained that he had failed to “cough up” the details. 
Josh Frydenberg struggles through his Economic Statement.
PICS: Alex Ellinghausen/NINE 4. We’ve been arguing for ages that parliament needs to start sitting again with normal regular dates set down.
The government voted against this on Tuesday but we kept making the case and by Thursday a new sitting calendar
was issued. That means parliament will return for two weeks in June. 5. Remember the government claiming they were spending a heap extra on childcare during this crisis? On Wednesday Amanda Rishworth led the charge by explaining they are actually spending $500 million less than they budgeted
for. Matt Thistlethwaite followed up with details of childcare cuts in his part of Sydney. 
1. Yesterday we found out 600,000 Australians who used to have jobs are now out of work. On the first two days question
time had started with health questions from Chris Bowen, but faced with this news about jobs Anthony Albanese opened
with this question: “My question is to the Prime Minister. The number of people employed in Australia fell by 600,000 in April. This followed the Prime Minister's decision to deny a wage subsidy for casual workers, arts and entertainment workers, and workers in the university and local government sectors. Aren't more Australians out of work today because the Prime Minister deliberately excluded them from the JobKeeper wage subsidy?” 2. So close. In the Senate we nearly managed to knock off a rule the government had brought in which allows workers
to be forced to vote on changes to their pay and conditions with only 24 hours’ notice. For many, this leaves
them with no time at all to obtain advice on the changes. At the last minute - and it looks like it really was the
very last minute - One Nation cut a deal with the government and we lost 29-30. Thanks to Don Farrell and all the
Senate team who co-signed the disallowance vote and fought to protect workers from a really lousy decision. 3. One advantage of there being fewer MPs in the chamber is it’s easier to hear the interjections and that’s
how I’ll finish this week’s email. These are in the worst column because of the Ministers at the beginning
of each exchange but would also be comfortable in the best list for the Labor responses. The first happened
when Dan Tehan first stood up to answer some questions. The context here is he is the one who was on Insiders a
couple of weeks ago and instead of his usual boring delivery became quite animated about how much he loathes Dan
Andrews - only to issue a retraction within hours of the interview finishing. When he rose for his first answer,
someone interjected “Say it with conviction so we know a retraction is coming!” A few minutes later
he had to answer a second question and as he walked to the despatch box Anthony Albanese quipped: “Are you
getting up to retract your previous answer?” 4. Michael McCormack (who you might not know but is apparently the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia) was asked
a question about why petrol prices are so high at the moment in Tasmania. His answer was to tell people
they really just need to shop around. Tasmanian Labor’s Julie Collins interjected: “What are we supposed
to do, drive off the island?” 
This guys is apparently the Deputy Prime Minister?
PICS: Mike Bowers/The Guardian 5. Scott Morrison really didn’t like being asked about sports rorts. After Richard Marles asked him about the
audit office finding his office had told the previous sports minister to seek the authority of the PM on projects
the PM dodged by saying he’d answered this many times but Labor had a problem with the answer. Tanya Plibersek
interjected “No, the audit office has a problem with your answer!” Finally there was a debate on Wednesday afternoon about whether we should have an inquiry into class action litigation
funding or whether it should be into how slowly the government has been moving on implementing the recommendations
of the banking royal commission. It wasn’t a debate that had been planned and so with no notice, Meryl Swanson stood up and delivered an extraordinary and passionate speech about a class action to defend
people in her electorate who otherwise would have lost everything.
That’s it for this week. And thanks to the campaign that many of you have been helping with to have
the parliament resume. We no longer have to wait for August and will be back in June.
‘til then,
Tony PS instead of a song of the week, Anthony Albanese has compiled a full Spotify list of songs to listen to during
lockdown. So here’s the link if you have Spotify and if not, here’s the list: 
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