Federal government's COVID-19 support tops $15 billion

As the government comes under pressure over the speed with which assistance is reaching individuals and organisations hit hard by social distancing measures, Treasury revealed $14.7 billion of payments have been distributed, not including JobSeeker payments.

The revelations came as Labor formally requested the Australian National Audit Office to investigate the government's management of Commonwealth debt.

Gross government debt has blown out to more than $607 billion - almost $50 billion more than the start of the year - following extraordinary measures worth more than $200 billion taken by the federal government to support the economy.

As part of its response, the government legislated to raise its debt ceiling from $600 billion to $850 billion.

Labor's finance spokeswoman Katy Gallagher said although the government's additional borrowing was warranted to support the economy, its management of the debt burden should be subject to independent scrutiny.

The move came as Treasury deputy secretary Jenny Wilkinson told a Senate committee hearing that $5.2 billion of the initial $750 household stimulus payment had been sent out, along with $7.5 billion from the small and medium business cash flow boost and an initial $1 billion under the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme.

Disbursements made under the JobKeeper scheme began to flow to business at the beginning of the week and a further $1.4 billion of payments are in the pipeline.

Ms Wilkinson said that of 900,000 businesses that had expressed an interest in the JobKeeper program 768,000 employing around 5 million workers have enrolled so far, and more may join over coming weeks and months as their circumstances change.

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Australian Taxation Office officials said more than $9 billion had also been paid out to 1.1 million people who had applied for early access to their superannuation.

The Senate committee was told the average time taken for super funds to pay out once they receive ATO notification is 1.6 days.

The wave of payments is intended to help cushion the blow to individuals and business whose earnings and income have been crunched by the virus-driven downturn.

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