The workers shut out of jobkeeper: 'I've lost 100% of my business'

As Australians told to stay inside over the Easter long weekend sit down to binge on TV or movies in the comfort of their homes, potentially hundreds of thousands of people who make those shows possible find themselves ineligible for the government’s jobkeeper payment.

The federal government’s package provides a $1,500-a-fortnight payment to employers who have suffered a significant downturn in turnover (between 15% and 50%, depending on the sector and size of the business) in the coronavirus pandemic to let them keep staff on. It only applies to sole traders, full- and part-time employees, and casuals who have been with the company for 12 months or more.

It’s estimated this limitation will mean an estimated 1.1 million casuals alone will miss out on the payment.

Related: Jobkeeper payment: am I eligible? Here's everything you need to know to register

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, just 47% of businesses in the arts and recreation sector reported they were still operating at the end of March but the extent of the short-term contract work in theatre, television, film, live shows and the wider arts industry means many of the 50,000 artists and 600,000 workers in the sector will potentially miss out on jobkeeper.

The second season of the Australian TV series Bloom, starring Bryan Brown, Phoebe Tonkin and Jacki Weaver will land on Stan this week. One of the show’s camera operators, Marty Smith, won’t have any income for the length of the pandemic and is ineligible for both the jobkeeper and the jobseeker payments.

Smith, who has been working in the industry for 25 years on shows including Janet King, Preacher, Offspring and House Husbands, tells Guardian Australia all his work is generally in short-term contracts through production companies, meaning he hasn’t been with any one employer for 12 months or more.

The majority of his work is not paid through his Australian business number, meaning he can’t claim as a sole trader either.

“Fundamentally, I’ve lost 100% of my business and there’s nobody there that is prepared to acknowledge that what I run is a small business,” he says.

Smith says he will still have expenses including insurance and the upkeep of his equipment in the time he has no work.

He has three children, with two doing in year 12 this year. He is not eligible for the jobseeker payment because his wife earns too much.

The actor Catherine Văn-Davies had the last few weeks of her Sydney Theatre Company production come to an abrupt end, and then work worth tens of thousands of dollars out to November cancelled.

Jobseeker isn’t a fit-for-purpose payment for the arts sector, she says, and there needs to be more funding broadly because the industry won’t just pick up where it left off when the pandemic ends.

“When you’re working on contract work it’s not just like things resume once once work picks up again – you’re starting from scratch,” she says.

“I knew a few people who were getting their first big break on a major film productions but those those credits don’t carry through.”

The productions coming up were cancelled, not postponed, she says.

An actor and national performers committee member of the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Jessica Tovey, tells Guardian Australia: “I think there’s an assumption that performers will be sole traders, and certainly there are probably a few people in our industry who do trade with their ABN, but the majority actually don’t.”

The sporadic work and varying employers mean the arts sector in particular “doesn’t tick any of the boxes”.

“It sends a message that the work that we do and the contribution we make is lesser than other working Australians and that just doesn’t seem fair.”

Smith says now more than ever, with people turning to TV to keep themselves entertained at home, Australians should realise that none of the people making these shows have work.

“The biggest issue is, right now, turn on the television and any movie, or television show you’re watching, there’s not one cast or crew member that is working, across the world,” he says.

Australia’s arts minister, Paul Fletcher, has said his department had conducted preliminary modelling showing that “total support to the sector could be in the billions depending on how many organisations are eligible and choose to take it up and how many eligible employees they have”.

Guardian Australia asked Fletcher’s office for the modelling but his office did not provide it.

On Thursday the minister announced $27m in additional funding for regional and remote artists, Indigenous artists and Support Act – a fund and helpline set up to support musicians and other performing artists at this time. The Arts Council has also announced a $5m resilience fund for people who have lost work.

It is not just those in the arts sector who have infrequent work and multiple employers.

Fiona Cox, a comedian who does freelance advertising work between gigs, had her Sydney comedy festival show cancelled. Usually when there isn’t comedy work, Cox says, she can normally seek casual advertising work, getting a job within a week.

That’s not the case now: “I’ve reached out to everyone I know. I’ve done a couple of jobs in the last month, and I’ve only had about eight hours work, whereas I normally probably would have worked a whole month.

“There’s no way I can see that I can claim jobkeeper simply because in the last 12 months I’ve been paid by, I would say, about eight different employers.”

Related: Casual and migrant workers are at the mercy of an economy that punishes its victims | Van Badham

Guardian Australia has also heard from a number of employees of council-run services including pools and libraries which are not included in the scheme, because the federal government has argued it is the responsibility of the states to support local government services.

And Matthew Pettit was working 25 hours between three jobs in Sydney – two in events retail and one in administration at a barristers chambers – in between his studies of information systems at the University of New South Wales. The job he has been with the longest was just a few weeks shy of 12 months.

He believes he is also ineligible for jobseeker because he is too young to apply for it, and can’t get youth allowance because, despite living far from home, his parents earn too much and he hasn’t worked enough hours to meet the requirements.

“It seems as though I’ve fallen through every single crack in every single system that has been put in place to assist people like me,” he says.