TRANSCRIPT: TELEVISION INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS WEEKEND AGENDA - SUNDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2019

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS WEEKEND AGENDA WITH TOM CONNELL
SUNDAY, 24 NOVEMBER 2019

SUBJECTS: Union laws; John Setka; Angus Taylor; Chinese spy; end of Parliament.

TOM CONNELL: Tony Burke good morning. Let's begin with the Registered Organisations Bill. Some key elements have been removed courtesy of the crossbench of course including any referral power for any person with a sufficient interest. This does seem on the surface to be at least more palatable for Labor and the unions.

TONY BURKE: Well let's have a look at where the Bill now stands if all of those amendments are carried. One of the arguments that the Government used when they brought this Bill in was corporate equivalence and some of the crossbenchers say that that would be their test as well. Last week we saw a bank be found to have broken the law 23 million times and Mr Morrison's response was ‘Well that's a matter for the board’. Under this bill, after the amendments, if a union puts its paperwork in late or fails to put its paperwork in three times, the entire organisation can be deregistered. If you're a bank 23 million breaches of the law and it's a matter for the board. nothing to see here. If you're a union, three breaches of paperwork and the entire organisation can be brought down. Now if that's meant to being corporate equivalence, I'm not sure how 23 million equals three. But 23 million if you're a bank - three paperwork breaches if you're a union.

CONNELL: Key language there is “can” be deregistered - that position is up to a court to be convinced. And the Commissioner would have to satisfy the court that those paperwork breaches as you referred to would be sufficient grounds to actually registered a union. I mean that's a pretty easy case for a union lawyer isn't it?

BURKE: Well two things there. First of all, the premise of it is the union after three paperwork breaches is dragged before the courts. And the union members’ money, paid by ordinary workers, paid by nurses, paid by cleaners, paid by firefighters, then has to go to fight that claim. But the second thing of course is, if we don't think it's reasonable don't leave that ground in the bill. It's not enough to say look we think it's unreasonable but we will leave the ground there and we'll hope that the Federal Court later on might fix it. No. If it's not reasonable you take it out and there is no corporate equivalence for getting rid of an entire organisation for three paperwork breaches. That's what they put in front of the Parliament. If the government doesn't believe that's reasonable, why have they put it in front of the Parliament? I think we all know the answer to that Tom. The reason this Bill is in front of the Parliament is that they want to bash unions. Unions are the organisations that fight for better pay, that fight for safe work conditions. And this Government has said that low wages are a deliberate design feature of their economic plan. Well this is part of how you deliver it.

CONNELL: What do you believe should happen to Westpac? The board, the CEO?

BURKE: Well you've asked me in terms of Ensuring Integrity and what I'm making clear is there is no corporate equivalence here. And that's the point I'm making with respect to laws on the banks and how those penalties function, there's a different shadow responsible for them. What I can say is with this Government there is no doubt at all they are putting forward one rule for corporate Australia and a completely different rule for the organisations that represent workers. And we have to think about the sort the types of offences that I just referred to Tom. One is paperwork breaches, where they want to come down like a ton of bricks. The other breaches that attack the laws the money laundering laws that deal with anti-terrorism, that deal with protection against child sex exploitation. These are serious breaches. 23 million of them. And that gets the tick. Three and you get thrown out.

CONNELL: Well it doesn’t get the tick. But is there an inherent issue with corporate law that those offences were entirely up to the board and the CEO as to what they would do. Is that a problem? Would Labor address that?

BURKE: Well it's the opposite of what they're saying for the unions. What I'm pointing to here Tom is the hypocrisy. What I'm pointing to is if the Government wants to claim that the Bill before the Parliament right now - and the Bill before the Parliament right now is not about the banks - the Bill before the Parliament right now is to change the laws for workers’ organisations and they say that they’re doing that to make it equivalent to where the banks are and it doesn’t do that at all.

CONNELL: But is there an inherent issue as well with corporate law when these offences happen and it's entirely up to Westpac as to if there is anyone losing their job or any personal punishments meted out? Is that an issue?

BURKE: In terms how that operates I'm sorry you got the wrong shadow out front. The laws that I'm across, that I'm fighting in the Parliament, that it's my role as Shadow Industrial Relations to deal with are the ones that will affect working Australians.

CONNELL: And just on equivalence, if John Setka were a CEO he'd be gone wouldn't he? Isn't that an inherent issue with unions, that they're a law unto themselves at the moment because if their union members agree with the head, well they'll stay in their position.

BURKE: Well well hang on. The whole John Setka part of this has been very clever marketing from Scott Morrison. It's not what the Bill’s about. If the Bill was about the construction union they would in fact be an amendment to a different act of Parliament, because it's a different Act of Parliament that deals specifically with the construction industry. The whole point of this Bill, the reason that it's an amendment specifically to the whole of registered organisations, is because they want to make sure they go after all workers organisations. And let's not forget what the biggest ones are. The biggest union in Australia is the nurses. And what this law will affect will be the nurses’ union. It will affect the firefighters. This Bill will affect cleaners. This Bill will affect shop assistants. And most of the people who are on the management committees of these different organisations are themselves volunteers. Now that's a world away a world away from the spin of the government. It’s the real life impact of what’s in front of the Parliament this week.

CONNELL: It does still cover the CFMEU, so I put this to you: if there were a CEO in corporate Australia that had been convicted over harassing his wife, threatening to publish names and addresses of the ABCC, harassing them and their children was part of the threat, punching the windscreen of a Grocon van, and also talking to a Grocon manager in 2003 saying “you just effing watch yourself, I'll get you I swear on my son's life you watch I'll fix you up”, that CEO would be gone but John Setka’s still there.

BURKE: Well we've got CEOs of organisations at the moment where the organisation has committed 23 million breaches and I've got to say if you started reading out those breaches on this interview you’d still be going tomorrow morning. You'd probably still be going in a week's time. So you want to put that forward as some equivalence - so to be honest I don't think stacks up.

CONNELL: But do you do you disagree with that prospect? That if another CEO had that rap sheet they would be gone, that there would be action taken whereas John Setka still has the approval of his union members despite the rap sheet.

BURKE: We've got CEOs who's who presided over the theft of their workers’ money. We have CEOs who have presided over breaches of anti-terror laws. He have CEOs who have dealt with a whole lot of those issues. Make no mistake. You've seen how strong the action against John Setka has been from the Labor Party - he is no longer a member of the Labor Party. And if I was a member of the CFMEU I wouldn't vote for him to be my leader. But that's a matter for the members. It's a matter for their decision, for who they are to be their representative. That's by definition what a representative organisation is meant to do.

CONNELL: We will just move on, we’ve got a couple of things to cover. You've made it clear you'll pursue Angus Taylor over this letter to Clover Moore. He has apologised unreservedly and he said information came from a previous version of the website which nobody has been able to disprove as yet. So what are you after exactly here?

BURKE: Well. One of the only rules left - and there's not many rules left in the way Scott Morrison handles the parliament - but one of the only rules left is the fact that you can't mislead the Parliament. That you're not allowed to directly effectively lie. Now, Angus Taylor told the Parliament that the document with the fake information had been drawn from the website of the council. Now the council’s produced the metadata to say that, no they never changed the document. The National Library in its Trove website the Trove information that's available from the National Library of Australia verifies that this information has never been changed. So all the public evidence says that Angus Taylor has misled the Parliament of Australia. Now it's for him to go to the Parliament and either explain that he gave information that was wrong and apologise or somehow explain that there's a piece of evidence here that everybody else has missed. But on the face of it, he's misled the Parliament and you don't get off the hook for misleading the Parliament of Australia by writing a letter to Clover Moore. You have to front up to the Parliament and you have to explain

CONNELL: He has done so and he says this was done by a staff member. Are you after their details or a personal statement from that staff member?

BURKE: Well on the public evidence that can't be true. On the public evidence you can't download a document that didn't exist. And this is no small matter. This is a Minister in the Australian Government says that a document with fake numbers in it was downloaded from a webpage directly to his office. Now the City of Sydney Council has been willing to pass on to journalists all the metadata to show that from their perspective that cannot be true. Angus Taylor is refusing to allow the same sorts of searches to be conducted on the metadata of his office. But at the end of all of this, you end up with the question can we believe a word they say?

CONNELL: He said that a staff member downloaded this and that's what happened and that was taken from a previous version and that was obviously that time not saved in any form so that the documents they have sent on to the media don't have that metadata because it wasn't saved per se. Again if that's what Angus Taylor is saying he's staff member did, are you saying you want the staff member’s personal account or their details?

BURKE: Well what I'm saying is how can that be true? I don't understand how that could be true. If the document he’s saying his staff member downloaded never existed. I don't see how that can be true. And unless he can verify that it's true, he's misled the Parliament of Australia in one of the most direct clear-cut examples I think I’ve ever seen.

CONNELL: Well he’s saying he passed on what he's been told by a staff member so isn't that where the next logical point of call goes?

BURKE: He hasn't just said I'm advised that this happened. He's said it. He's put it on himself, and said this came directly downloaded from the council's website. And all the public evidence says that cannot be turned. So it’s for him. It’s not for him to throw a staff member under the bus. Tom, I’ve have said on each occasion that on all the public evidence that cannot be true. Now if there is evidence that's not public, that somehow says the metadata from the City of Sydney Council was wrong, the trove sourced from the National Library of Australia was wrong, if all of that information is somehow available then by all means he should stand up in the Parliament and say that. But you know I reckon it's probably not what happened. And anyone looking at this logically - you know there's a reason why Angus Taylor has become the most accident-prone minister in this government and it's because there's lots of front like Mr Morrison. There's lots of marketing and careful messaging but when you get to the substance there's no plan and it looks on the face of it from the evidence that we've got like there's no honesty.

CONNELL: There is a defecting Chinese spy, Wang Liqiang living in Sydney at the moment. Does he deserve Australia’s protection?

BURKE: It's a really serious set of allegations that have emerged today in the news. Anthony Albanese as our leader has said that Labor will be seeking briefings to be able to get the details from the Government. It's clear from the reports today that our authorities are still going through the veracity of the different claims and that's a really serious thing to be teased out. So the Government holds all the information on this but certainly from what's been reported, we're talking about extraordinarily serious claims that may well give rise to to what you said. But the veracity of it all needs to be worked through first and we'll be seeking a briefing of all that information.

CONNELL: Whatever happens, if we were to offer protection it would earn the ire of China. Should that worry Australia or not?

BURKE: We've as a nation we've always met when we've dealt with protection issues, dealt with them strictly according to law and the legal tests are pretty clear on this. And you'd expect the Government would deal with that. But I I think we're a few steps away from that at the moment. The first stage from the reports today is certainly for the veracity of the claims to be tested.

CONNELL: Just finally you've been at the forefront of a few Parliaments now. What are your reflections early on of this one?

BURKE: Well there's been a change in how we've handled the Parliament since the election. In that our questions, it's not just they're shorter - but they’re really tight, really simple. Sometimes you will throw one in that's really long to make a case but effectively we've gone to short, sharp questions that demand a simple answer. And we've seen a Government that can't give a straight answer to a simple question. You see a lot when Parliament's on about Mr Morrison's character. You see a lot when Parliament's on about the fact that they can't talk about any issue without getting about 30 seconds in and suddenly they want to hammer Labor. And you can have a look at that politically. But it actually shows something deeper. And if they had a plan for Australia they'd be talking about it. And when everyday we hit with questions about the economy and every day they respond by just wanting to talk about their political opponents. Now that shows that there is no plan from this Government and at a time where growth is the slowest it's been since the global financial crisis, where unemployment's up with nearly 2 million Australians either looking for work or looking for more work, where wages growth at an all time low, profits growing six times faster than wages. These are big economic challenges that are hitting every household in Australia. What's the Government’s response?

CONNELL: We're nearly out of time but there were also problems on the horizon during the election and you had a massively bigger tax impost ready to tackle that.

BURKE: We've already we've already dealt with the review and at the next election, you know Anthony Albanese will be taking forward a different set of policies. You've got to work on the basis if you go back with the exact same policies you’ll get the same answer and we've got to work our way through all of that. And Anthony Albanese with the vision statements has been making has been hitting the mark. But right now we can't wait for the next election for there to be a plan for Australia. The Government needs to do it now and all they've got is a marketing plan for politics.

CONNELL: Tony Burke, thanks for your time.

BURKE: Great to be with you.

ENDS