A Chinese government-controlled firm with Communist Party links will be eligible to receive $1,500 a fortnight wage subsidies as workers at a similar, foreign-owned company miss out.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s last-minute change to JobKeeper rules has barred employees from receiving taxpayer help if their employer is 100 per cent foreign government owned.
Under these May 1 amendments, 5,500 workers at airline catering company Dnata will miss out on $750 a week because their employer’s parent company Emirates Group is fully-owned by the United Arab Emirates government.
Airport baggage handling company Swissport’s 2,500 Australian staff, however, will be eligible for a share of the $130billion JobKeeper program.
That’s because its Chinese parent company HNA, an aviation and real estate giant, isn’t strictly a wholly state-owned firm, even though a Chinese provincial government now has a controlling interest in it.
A Chinese-owned firm with Communist Party links will be eligible to receive $1,500 a fortnight wage subsidies as workers at a similar, foreign-owned company miss out. Swissport’s (logistics worker in Geneva pictured) Chinese parent company HNA, an aviation and real estate giant, isn’t strictly a state-owned firm, even though the Chinese government now has a controlling interest in it
‘Swissport Australia is not affected by the restrictions on JobKeeper because it is not wholly owned by any foreign state or government entity,’ a Swissport spokesman told Daily Mail Australia.
While HNA’s key shareholders are private companies and individuals, China expert Professor Clive Hamilton said the company had murky connections to the Chinese Communist Party.
‘HNA is a shadowy company that is believed by some experts to be an investment vehicle for powerful Communist Party families,’ the Professor of Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University in Canberra told Daily Mail Australia.
Professor Hamilton said Chinese firms like HNA advanced the geopolitical interests of the Communist Party by going on debt-fuelled global acquisitions.
‘Their purchases of assets abroad build China’s influence and Beijing can call on them to engage in influence activities and assist intelligence operations at any time,’ he said.
Labor senator Tony Sheldon – a member of a parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, defence and trade – questioned why HNA, a Chinese government controlled firm, was more deserving of receiving JobKeeper than Dnata.
Under Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s JobKeeper changes, 5,500 workers at airline catering company Dnata (Adelaide airport pictured) will miss out on $750 a week because their employer’s parent company Emirates Group is fully-owned by the United Arab Emirates government
‘Swissport is owned by HNA which has recently come under the full control of the Chinese government as part of a bailout,’ he told Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday.
‘It would be a diabolical double standard if the Australian government extends JobKeeper to these workers and abandons those who work for a company that is transparently owned by another government – in this case the UAE.’
In February, as coronavirus saw Wuhan locked down, the government of China’s southern Hainan province was in talks with HNA to take it over, sources told Bloomberg and the South China Morning Post at the time.
Senator Sheldon, a former leader of the Transport Workers Union, said JobKeeper was supposed to help all Australian workers, regardless of who owned their employer.
‘The government needs to explain why it is splitting hairs over the ownership structure of these companies resulting in some workers in the aviation industry doing the same job can access stay employed, while others are thrown on the dole queue,’ he said.
HNA Group founder and chairman Chen Feng has spoken openly of being a key ally of Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping.
In 2018, he told Communist Party members HNA would ‘unswervingly follow the party’ and ‘consciously safeguard the Communist Party’s central authority with General Secretary Xi Jinping as the core’, in a speech reported by the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.
‘HNA is a Hainan company, rooted in China. HNA’s businesses also belong to the party, the people and mankind,’ he said.
HNA Group founder chairman Chen Feng (pictured) has spoken openly of being a key ally of Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping
Mr Chen, on HNA’s website, also touts his roles with the Civil Aviation Administration of China and the National Air Regulations Bureau.
He also served as the ‘aviation business adviser’ to the Provincial Governor of Hainan province, a role with ties to the Communist Party.
Under last week’s changes to the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Act 2020, a ‘sovereign entity’ won’t qualify for the JobKeeper payment.
The term ‘sovereign entity’ is defined as a body that is wholly-owned by a foreign country or foreign government agency.
A Treasury spokeswoman defended the JobKeeper changes.
‘Government employers are considered to have a greater capacity to support their employees through this period than private businesses,’ she told Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday.
A Treasury spokeswoman defended the JobKeeper changes, as part of Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s amendment to the Coronavirus Economic Response Package (Payments and Benefits) Act 2020
Dnata stood down 4,000 employees on March 30 when the COVID-19 pandemic caused the shutdown of the commercial aviation industry, with the Adelaide workers retrenched first on March 26, the Australian Services Union told members in a staff bulletin.
Workers were originally told JobKeeper payments would cover them but the retroactive change to legislation has left workers scrambling to find ways to supplement their income.
As part of the loophole, Dnata will be barred from receiving JobKeeper because it is wholly foreign-government owned.
Emirates Group bought out Australian logistics company Toll Group’s shareholding in January 2015, with approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus said the government needed to reverse the JobKeeper loophole barring wholly foreign government-owned firms from receiving the COVID-19 wage subsidy.
‘All working people who have lost their job or been stood down because of the coronavirus should have access to JobKeeper,’ she told Daily Mail Australia.
‘It should not matter who owns your company, if you have lost your income, you have lost your income.
‘This is inflicting unnecessary economic hardship on millions of Australian workers and their families.
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus said the government needed to reverse the JobKeeper loophole barring wholly foreign government-owned firms from receiving the COVID-19 wage subsidy
‘The Treasurer can make this change immediately and should do so.’
The $130billion wage subsidy scheme was unveiled on March 30 to enable businesses to keep their employees on the books during the economic downturn resulting from COVID-19 shutdown.
It also meant staff could keep being paid, without having to apply for the JobSeeker unemployment benefit.
Australia is home to 9,946 foreign-owned businesses that are at least 50 per cent foreign-owned, data from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Austrade showed.
Chinese, UAE and Qatar state owned firms are the biggest source of wholly, foreign government-owned entities in Australia, University of New South Wales trade economist Tim Harcourt said.
Foreign businesses employ 966,000 Australians about 8.7 percent of the workforce
China is Australia’s fifth biggest foreign investor but is the biggest two-way trading partner, as the biggest export market for iron ore, coal, tourism and university education.