ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A small businessman has lied to his staff aged over-35 this morning and says he’s not about to sack them in favour of hiring younger workers on the JobMaker subsidy.
For nearly 20 years, Martin Pooley of Pooley’s Cleaning and Taxidermy, has provided quality service to the wider Betoota Community.
From the ground up, Martin built his company to the point where it now employs over 40 people on enterprise agreements which give the workers almost no protections or rights.
As his cleaning staff are un-unionised and employed on casual contracts, there’s almost nothing stopping Martin from sacking them.
The 69-year-old Commodore of Lake Betoota Sailing Club said, however, that he won’t be doing that – he won’t be exploiting the new JobMaker scheme to benefit only himself.
“Oh, no,” he said.
“Most of my hard-working employees are women aged over 35. I can’t possibly sack them just to take part in the latest rort Scott Morrison has dished out to people like me,”
“I’ve got most of them on JobKeeper now, anyway. They’re already making me a fortune. Instead of my clients invoicing my company, they’ve been invoicing my wife’s ABN. So it looks like my company is struggling, where it’s clearly not. If anything, my business has gone through the roof with all the COVID shit and all. Cleaning is the new tech,”
“And now this. It’s almost like ScoMo wants me, an ageing white company director, to have more cash than I know what to do with,”
“But this is a bridge too far. I’m not going to sack all my old ducks and hire unemployed 20-somethings on the dole just to get the $200 wage subsidy,”
“Well. Maybe when they turn JobKeeper off, I’ll consider it.”
More to come.
