TRANSCRIPT: RADIO INTERVIEW - ABC MELBOURNE - DEC 7, 2020

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO MELBOURNE WITH VIRGINIA TRIOLI
MONDAY, 7 DECEMBER 2020

SUBJECT: The government’s attack on casual workers.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI, HOST: Tony Burke is the Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations. Tony Burke, good morning.

BURKE: G’day Virginia.

TRIOLI: Is this the sort of clarification or certainty that you would have been hoping to see?

BURKE: Well, I still haven't seen the bill so there is some limitation. But going from today's report it's not quite what the spin is saying. And if I could find explain it in these terms. After 12 months, the casual - if the employer has been abusing it and effectively employing them as a permanent but only giving them the security of casual employment - after 12 months, the employer can say “I'd now like a permanent job”. And the employer can still say “no”. So what we've got is a situation where, up until now, it's been the case that the employee had a series of different rights to say “no no no, I am in fact a permanent worker” and to have that enforced. They lose those rights and all they get now is a right after 12 months to say “please, can you fix it?” and the employer can say “no”. So whoever is responsible for the briefings to the papers today within the government's media ranks has done a sterling job. But it's difficult to see this as providing any improvement for casuals at all.

TRIOLI: We’re now stuck in the middle between two interpretations. And this is a difficult position for me as a broadcaster and our listeners because they’re just going well who do we believe?

BURKE: Well, let's just start with the worker who the original case was about that, that has brought all of this on. So you had a worker who was employed as a casual that was given a 12 month permanent roster. So technically they could they could lose their shifts at any point but the employer wanted the security of having this person turn up for regular employment every day. And the courts looked at it and said, well, hang on, that's not a casual job, that's a permanent job. And therefore they're entitled to leave entitlements. What the legislation the government's proposing would be to say, no, you don't actually get any of those leave entitlements, even though your roster has been permanent. All that happens after 12 months is you will have a right to say “Can you please fix it now?” And the employer will be able to say, “No, I'm not sure if your job will still be there, not going to fix it”. So, you know, is the right to request something new? Well, yeah, it is. But it's accompanied by a right to refuse. So there's a tiny little thing that casuals get that they don't currently have - but they lose a whole lot of rights on the way through.

TRIOLI: Clearly this is part of the government's, and also a lot of businesses to be fair, ongoing concern about the so called you know “double dipping” which is, you know, the casual loading that you get through the way that you're paid, which is supposed to take account of being paid those entitlements, for example. So they leave you as a casual. So you are still, you know, in inverted commas getting those entitlements, that's part of your casual pay.

BURKE: Yeah I hate to complicate it further but I'm going to give it a go. If you go back to the case that started all of this, the casual worker was actually being paid less than the permanents they were working beside. So the argument that the casuals are already being paid more - the casual worker in this case was employed by a labour hire firm, they were on a lower hourly rate than the permanent workers they were working side by side with. And effectively what it meant was, if an employer is abusing the situation of casuals, then there ends up being a penalty on the employer for the abuse. It was a very limited number of casuals who would be in this situation, but there were some casuals being employed as a casual, but were really being used as a permanent worker, then the employer would pay effectively a penalty for that abuse. That penalty goes, which then you've got to ask the question, what's the disincentive? What's the disincentive on an employer to just say, “Well, I'm going to employ you casually give no security”. There's no longer a penalty on the employer for doing that. And after 12 months the most you can do as a worker is ask “Can you please stop doing that?” If it was any other area of the law, would we have a situation where illegal conduct is put up with us for 12 months? And at the end of 12 months, the most somebody can do is say “can you please stop?”

TRIOLI: A lot of comments coming in on this this morning, Tony Burke, interestingly, this is from Luke: “I'd love to employ full-time or part-time staff but everyone who applies wants a casual position? It's bonkers.” Which seems counterintuitive to what a lot of other people are saying, that they're desperate for more permanent work. Given that that's your reading on it, and we're going to speak in a moment to the Labour Hire Licencing Commissioner and see if they've got a view on it too. Christian Porter was not available to us this morning, the Industrial Relations Minister. So is Labor prepared to support this, or do you want to amendments or what are you thinking at this stage?

BURKE: Well certainly what's been described in the papers today, I can't see us supporting. I had hoped that the government would bring forward a consensus from the working groups that they did. A whole lot of employers and employee union representatives sat down for a long time, trying to reach consensus on different issues. And I'd flagged that if what the government presented reflected that consensus then I thought it would pass the parliament relatively quickly. It looks like they're not in the business of consensus and they're just in the business of picking a side. So we'll wait till we see the legislation, so I won't jump before we've seen the full detail, but if it reflects what we've got here at the moment then it's bad for security of work. And the principle that that will apply as our test is whether or not the legislation provides jobs with decent pay that are secure. That's our test. At the moment what's being announced today fails that test. And that's not just from a worker’s perspective. If you look at what the need of the economy is going to be over the next year as we come out of the pandemic – the economy is going to want people to start spending again. And if people don't have security of employment, they're not going to have the confidence to spend. So getting this right is really important all around and what's been announced today, so far on the face of it, fails that test pretty badly.

TRIOLI: Good to talk to you today Tony Burke, thank you.

BURKE: Thanks very much.