Crikey went public with this JobKeeper piece at around 11am on Friday and while there was a prediction of some cynically timed upcoming disclosures from companies to the ASX in the period ahead, it was never anticipated the following Friday afternoon deluge would roll out as follows:
3.55pm
Seven West Media: claimed $13.64 million in JobKeeper for 2617 staff in year one followed by $33.39 million in year two for a total haul of $47 million with nothing refunded. The contrast with Nine Entertainment, which claimed nothing at the parent company level and just a net $6 million at subsidiaries like Domain and Pedestrian, is stark indeed.
3.57pm
Aristocrat Leisure: the pokies giant snaffled $16.14 million for 840 staff in year one then stopped claiming but never paid anything back either. With a market capitalisation of $31 billion and a share price that has tripled in five years, this is one company which just didn’t need JobKeeper and should have followed the lead of CIMIC, Santos, REA Group, Iluka Resources, Credit Corp and many others by repaying the full amount.
4.02pm
Crown Resorts: claimed $291.2 million over two years and returned nothing. But at least they haven’t paid a dividend since April 2020, have seen the share price tumble from $12 in January 2020 to $9.78 on Friday night, declared a $261.6 million loss in 2020-21 and have a majority of their staff in Melbourne, where the lockdowns were the longest in the country, if not the world.
4.19pm
Accent Group: the shoe retailer claimed $13.72 million in year one and $31.27 million in year two for 2,650 staff for a total haul of $45 million with nothing repaid. Like several retailers, they were able to tweak their rosters to maximise the benefit by standing down full time staff to only give them the $750 JobKeeper payment and then standing up those working one or two days a week to get them closer to the full JobKeeper amount, effectively maximising the benefit of the government wage subsidy. There will be plenty to discuss at the upcoming AGM at 10am this Friday.
A2B: the old Cabcharge claimed $6.44 million for 720 staff in year one and $16.17 million in year two for a total of $22.6 million with nothing repaid. Probably reasonable in the circumstances given the taxi business was hit hard by COVID and the share has plunged from more than $5 to just $1.33 over the past decade, thanks to Uber cutting its lunch.
4.20pm
Eagers Automotive: claimed $131 million for 7,357 staff in year one from March until December 31, 2020 as it runs on a calendar year. No claim in 2021 and refunded nothing. Probably the most egregious example of over-claiming on the ASX, particularly considering that its 2020 net profit was $156.2 million, up from a net loss of $139.6 million in 2019 and revenue soared from $5.8 billion to $8.75 billion, albeit reflecting the merger of AP Eagers and Automotive Holdings in late 2019 to create Australia’s largest car dealer network. The stock was trading at around $10 in January before the pandemic hit, crashed to a low of $3 in March 2020 at the peak of the panic and closed on Friday night at $13.51, giving it a market capitalisation of $3.47 billion. They can easily afford to return the entire $131 million claimed, which they should do.
5.57pm
Premier Investments: Billionaire Solly Lew’s retailer pocketed $40.45 million for 4,545 staff in year one then $46.55 million in year two for a total of $87 million, but then it repaid $15.6 million leaving a net haul of $71.4 million. Premier has previously claimed this $15.6 million reflected the net benefit flowing to shareholders but this doesn’t line up with other retailers like Best & Less which claimed that it pocketed a majority of its $46.2 million JobKeeper haul as profit. It has a similar Australian store footprint to Premier.
In total, there were 474 ASX listed companies which signed up for JobKeeper, so we should give a shout out to all those big outfits which didn’t go near the scheme, namely CSL, BHP, ANZ, NAB, Westpac, CBA, Woodside, Macquarie, QBE, Coles, Scentre Group, IAG and Wesfarmers.
Wooworths would have been within their rights to claim it for all their shuttered pokies pubs during the Melbourne lockdown but it took the principled decision not to participate. This was in stark contrast to the nation’s second biggest corporate pub empire, the KKR-owned Australian Venue Company, which The Australian reported last week pocketed around $50 million over the past two financial years.
That was the biggest problem with JobKeeper. The rules were so slack you only had to forecast the required revenue reduction and you then tapped into the government largesse for your entire workforce for a minimum of six months, irrespective of whether your business was shut or your staff were working.
A smash and grab raid on taxpayers’ fund in broad daylight and sanctioned by the current Treasurer and his mates.
Apparently it’s known as ‘Can Do Capitalism’.
He has a manic determination to stick to the neoliberal playbook and reduce taxation, especially for the corporate sector and high income brackets. Otherwise like Scotty he is totally before of any policies. An empty vessel.
“That was the biggest problem with JobKeeper. The rules were so slack you only had to forecast the required revenue reduction…”
That is only half of what was wrong. The second element was equally important. First, the employer was invited to just think of a number, and was given the cash. The second element was the lack of any provision to compare subsequently the number invented by the employer to the business’s actual revenue and then recover over-payments.
The slack rules on forecasting would have been perfectly ok if all over-payments were recovered. In fact, it would quite likely have been good to keep the forecasting rules simple and easy, so long as there was no doubt about the recovery of over-payments.
Courtesy of Oily Fryberg. He is too arrogant and deceitful to admit any errors. Hopefully the would be PM will be punted at the coming election.
The listed allocations of public monies neither rorts or economic stabilisation. It is pure failure. Governmental, politically biased mis-management. Or, from man-in-street perspective . . . corruption.
As Scotty famously said “I don’t engage in the politics of envy”. What a defense of grifting and rorting. No need for argument or logic. The rich deserve it because they’re rich.
Why would he engage in the politics of envy? On Morrison’s side of the fence, he and his mates are all in for the politics of jealousy – keeping a very tight hold on everything they’ve managed to grab onto and making sure none of the little people get a sniff of it.
Or we could just revert to the old, honest but now almost unmentionable terminology which applies on both sides the fence. It’s class war, and as Warren Buffet helpfully pointed out, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
However, Moronscum sure does love engaging in the politics of “Punching Down”.
Who says neo-liberal free marketeering Govts’ don’t redistribute wealth !!..in the wink,wink,nudge,nudge,nod,nod land of Oz, to the wealthy go the spoilings of democracy..