TRANSCRIPT: RADIO INTERVIEW - ABC RADIO NATIONAL - MONDAY, 30 MARCH 2020

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC RADIO NATIONAL WITH FRAN KELLY
MONDAY, 30 MARCH 2019

SUBJECTS: Wage subsidy; recalling Parliament.

FRAN KELLY, HOST: The Opposition is urging the Federal Government to get on with it, to give desperate employers a final chance to stay in business and to stop the sweeping layoffs which have seen hundreds of thousands of people join the unemployment queues. Tony Burke is the Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations. Tony Burke welcome back to breakfast.

TONY BURKE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: Hi Fran.

KELLY: Well you said yesterday the government has got to get on with it. It seems like they heard you. The Treasurer will announce his wage subsidy scheme today. Do you welcome that?

BURKE: Oh absolutely. I mean we want to see the details but the concept of people being able to keep their relationship with their workplace is really important. It's important for them now. And it's really important when we get on the other side of the outbreak months down the track. I do take issue with the argument that the Treasurer just put on your program, where he claimed they'd been working on this for some time. It was only Friday when Mathias Cormann was in the news, ruling it out and the government spent weeks ridiculing this. I'm glad they seem to have got closer now, because we might have been able to avoid some of the scenes that we saw over the last few weeks. There are some challenges I've got with the design. But the fact that they are now acknowledging that we need to keep people in touch with their workplace, that's a really good step forward.

KELLY: We don't know the elements of the design yet and the Treasurer has you know had said stay tuned to the press conference later today. But the main point is to keep workers, employers and employees linked. Effectively, does it need to ensure that all those people who have been laid off from their employers, all those retail workers, all sorts of casuals, hospitality workers – that they remain effectively employed on the books of their company or their restaurant or their cafe or whatever it is. Is that is that how it should work or it must work in order for this to be effective?

BURKE: There's three elements you need to have. The first is exactly what you've said – it needs to be conditional on keeping people on. The first sort of business support scheme the government had was one where the employer that sacked all their staff got the exact same benefit as the person who kept them on. So it needs to be conditional and it sounds like it will be. The second question is who gets it? And the third will be for business, is it enough? On who gets it, I am concerned at the moment that they're only talking about full timers. You know, more than a third of the workforce now is part-time. Of the part time, and that covers casuals as well, of that part of the workforce more than two thirds of them are women. A significant number of those people work more than one part-time job. So they're working full time hours but across a number of employers. Now from the sounds of what's been leaked to the papers today those workers are going to get nothing. And if you think about the industries that have done the big shutdowns – retail, hospitality and the like - these are industries where you have a minority of people in full-time work. We want to make sure that this reaches all workers and that has to include people in insecure work, people in the gig economy, and we've got to find a way of helping sole traders as well.

KELLY: Okay we will wait and see how extensive the government’s plan is when the Treasurer announces it. But reportedly, The Australian reports today, that the amount being considered or to be announced is around $1500 a fortnight. That's more than the current payment, the coronavirus supplements payment that the government announced, and it comes in at around, pretty close to 70 per cent of the net median wage. But it's a lot less than unions and employees were pushing for. Would $1500 a fortnight be enough to stop workers being stood down do you think?

BURKE: Well you need to put it in the context of an employer who's lost all their revenue. And an employer who's lost all their revenue, when it's an 80 per cent or above subsidy you can imagine a large number of employers saying “I don't want to lose contact with my workforce, I'm going to find a way to make this work”. When you get a number that comes in at less than half of average weekly earnings then you've got to say, in the context that employers are facing, there'll be some where this makes a difference in being able to keep the workforce on. And that's to be welcomed and that's really good. But there will be a large number of employers that look at the figure that's in the papers today and say well it's nice to have the help but I still can't afford it. And you know that's before you get to the ones that have a high percentage of people who are not employed full-time.

KELLY: You're talking about businesses that haven’t laid off their workforce yet, that this kind of subsidy might not be enough to help them keep them on.

BURKE: That's right. That's right. And it will also, for some who have laid off … I mean we still don't know the design. So there's are some issues here where we've just got to see how the government designs it. But the test of what they do today will be the number of employers who can now afford to keep people on, and the number of workers who are in fact eligible. Because there are big holes in what's been described today. I welcome it to the extent that it's there but I'm worried about how many people will be left behind.

KELLY: You're listening to RN Breakfast, our guest is Tony Burke, the Shadow Industrial Relations Minister. The Treasurer did confirm, I mean this package is going to cost a lot, it's going to have a huge price tag, and the Treasurer has confirmed it would have to be legislated. Which will take some time. Because you're the Manager of Opposition Business you would know that Parliament's not due to resume until August. Can Parliament be recalled before that? Could this be sorted out between the leaders without recalling Parliament?

BURKE: If it requires legislation then it requires Parliament. And the government always has the power to recall Parliament and we've been encouraging them to do so. So when we –
 
KELLY: But does recalling Parliament require calling everyone back, or can you recall Parliament and just have four people from each side. Basically the leadership group?
 
BURKE: You can do it with as few as 31 now in terms of the House of Reps. The Senate’s a different number, but all you need, so long as you've got the quorum, you can recall the Parliament. We made some changes to standing orders last Monday, supported by both sides. So you can now do it with very few people. Basically the number of people who are within easy driving distance gets you to quorum, so this can be done. And as I say - if this had been ready to go two weeks ago there may be a large number of people who found themselves in Centrelink queues and had their lives turned upside down when this didn't need to happen. And the whole period the government was ridiculing the idea and right through to last Friday when they were still ruling it out, there’s lives turned upside down in the interim. As soon as the legislation is ready to go they should be recalling Parliament and we'll get it done.

KELLY: All right Tony Burke thank you very much for joining us.

BURKE: Great to be back on the program.

ENDS