TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - THE PROJECT - MONDAY, 6 APRIL 2020

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
THE PROJECT
MONDAY, 6 APRIL 2020

SUBJECTS: JobKeeper wage subsidy.

CARRIE BICKMORE: Tony Burke, you have to draw the line somewhere. The government's drawing it at twelve months. What's wrong with that?

TONY BURKE: Well the first thing is having a wage subsidy is a good thing. So we called for them to introduce a wage subsidy. They're doing it. That's good. And you do have to draw a line somewhere. The problem is they’ve drawn a really weird line. So you know if you're somebody who's been working in a clothing store that’s had a big downturn and you're a casual, you've been there for 10 months, you work five days a week and that money is sustaining your livelihood then you'll get nothing out of this program. But if you’re someone who has done a shift three hours at the local fast food place, I've got a KFC up the road here, if you've done three hours a week up there you won't just qualify but instead of the $70 or so that you used to earn you'll now $750 a week. Now I don't know how you draw a line where the person who’s working for pocket money gets $750 a week and the person who's trying to get a whole livelihood to look after a household walks away not eligible at all. That's where they've drawn the line at the moment.

WALEED ALY: It is an anomaly but that's always going to happen when you come up with big very rapid-fire policies to fix an emergency sort of a problem. Where would you draw the line?

BURKE: I'm not critical in bagging the Government for this is how they first announced it. The thing is we've got very little time, and in terms of us coming up with some alternative and saying here's the line. There's going to be almost no time for amendments on Wednesday. The time to fix it is now. And that's what we're pointing out to the government. These are the sorts of examples, like if you're a casual teacher in the independent system, you could have been a casual teacher for five years but because you go from school to school to school you won't have had the one employer for 12 months - 

ALY: Sorry to interrupt you but we're just short on time. I understand that point that you're making but there's no point making it if there isn't an alternative line. If there isn't a different way or a better way you can draw the line then it's really just commentary.

BURKE: There's lots of different ways you can do it Waleed. One way you can do it where you simply have the definition of regular casuals. Another one is where you count when somebody has been working more than 12 months in the sector. The other is where you look, they've had regular employment and you look at the amount they've been earning, and if the amount they've been earning is not some sort of pocket money amount, and it's something that is you know they're sustaining a livelihood on it, then you have an amount as the threshold and you say well they're the people who qualify. But I just don't understand how you can justify leaving the people out who are relying on it and then having other people where the money's not as important to them saying well bonus you're going to get ten times what you've been earning.

STEVE PRICE: Tony the other thing that people are worried about is we've seen government schemes rorted in the past. What's to say that an employer takes this money and doesn't pass it onto the worker to the person working for it?

BURKE: In most cases they’ll have to pass it on. There’s one example where that rort does occur and we've been arguing that it should be fixed and at the moment the government hasn't fixed it, and that's if you're taking leave. Now if you're taking annual leave that's money the employer already owed you, was already sitting on their balance sheet for you. And if you're taking leave at the moment the government's got it that the wage subsidy still gets paid it's just the employer gets to keep it and none of it gets passed through - you're simply getting the liability they already owed you. Now that's an easy one to fix. It would save the government a whole lot of money and they could spend some of that money on the people who are missing out. But as I say at the moment they haven't shifted at all in these areas from what they announced.

PETER HELIAR: Tony the arts industry has been ripped apart. I can't imagine anyone in the arts industry qualifying for any of this. Do you have a policy on that, what you want to see the government do?

BURKE: Once again we've been saying we need to have a, and we've been generally supportive of a lot of the things that Live Performance Australia have been pushing, but effectively when people leave gig to gig, event to event, festival for festival and that's how they make their livelihood, you've got to have a project specifically for them. Because these are the same people who when the bushfires were on they were going out, we were asking them to perform for free, they were all working for free doing all of this to help the rest of the community. Now they've hit hard times. We shouldn't be turning our backs on them.

BICKMORE: Minister, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you so much for your time tonight, really appreciate it.

BURKE: Thanks heaps. 
 
ENDS