“One of the simplest and most effective actions the Government can take to address the pain of the Covid-19 economic fallout is to temporarily make redundancy payments tax-free,” according to ACT Leader David Seymour.

“The Finance and Expenditure Committee today heard from former Virgin Australia (NZ) pilot Mike Kenyon.

“Mr Kenyon pointed out that people who are left redundant often pay an enormous amount of tax on their redundancy payment, hurting them at the exact moment they are most desperate.

“In the current environment, people made redundant often have highly specialised skills, such as pilots, which do not transfer easily. They find themselves looking for work in the most uncertain job market in living memory.

“The Government has many initiatives to hand taxpayer money out, but a simpler approach is always to take less in the first place.

“Tens of thousands of jobs are now being lost and the economic pain is staggering.

“The Prime Minister could apply her trademark kindness to make these redundancies slightly less painful.

“Making redundancy payments tax-free is something the Government could do easily and immediately if it chose to.”

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