The AFR’s Joe Aston has done a terrific job exposing the hypocrisy of Peter Switzer, who has attacked unemployed ‘bludgers’ receiving COVID support payments while companies he partly owns collected $292,500 in JobKeeper despite pulling in fat profits:
- Switzer argued [in his article] that the Morrison government’s $750 weekly support payments are both a disincentive to work and an incentive to commit welfare fraud because they’re too generous.
- “Has government generosity meant we’re seeing the return of the rational bludger?” he began.
- Remember, only workers who cannot work a single day because of lockdowns are eligible for these payments, yet Switzer has tortuously rooted out an army of “layabouts” who are staying home by government decree. It’s typical nonsense.
- If only Peter Switzer held himself to the same towering standard of self-sufficiency. After all, his Switzer Financial Group owns 13 per cent of Contango Asset Management, which in turn owns Switzer Asset Management. Contango is run by Peter’s devoted son Marty Switzer, a perfect alien to meritocracy.
- Between April and September of 2020, Contango applied for and received $292,500 in JobKeeper.
- Contango’s sales in the quarter ending March 31, 2020, were $1.2 million, up 16.7 per cent on the same quarter in 2019. We also know that Contango’s sales in the quarter ending June 30, 2020, were $1.2 million, up 4.6 per cent on the previous corresponding period. And in the quarter ending September 30, 2020, Contango’s sales were $1.5 million, up 29.8 per cent. Er, what pandemic?
- JobKeeper did not save the job of a single fund manager, at Contango or elsewhere. Contango feasted on it anyway, like the rational bludgers they are.
Terrific stuff. The same criticisms can be levelled at the Morrison Government, which continues to pursue the unemployed for coronavirus ‘overpayments’, while letting billionaires like Gerry Harvey keep millions in JobKeeper subsidies despite Harvey Norman’s profits increasing.
