Australia created an astonishingly generous wage subsidy scheme, propping up ASX300 companies’ profits, dividends and executive bonuses.
We’re yet to see the work of the federal auditor-general on JobKeeper, but Grant Hehir’s office would be well advised to have a close read of the excellent 17-page analysis released yesterday by proxy advisory firm Ownership Matters investigating the huge JobKeeper payments accessed by ASX300 companies in calendar 2020.
The mainstream media is full of coverage today on the report, spanning The Australian’s John Durie, The Age, The AFR, the ABC and Guardian Australia.
It’s hard to know where to start given the scale of the largesse. Suffice to say there were not many examples cited of listed companies which lost money in 2020 but were kept afloat by JobKeeper.
