TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - ABC INSIDERS - SUNDAY, 10 MAY 2020
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC INSIDERS WITH DAVID SPEERS
SUNDAY, 10 MAY 2020
SUBJECT: Reopening the economy, safe workplaces, paid pandemic leave, arts and entertainment workers, JobKeeper wage subsidy, minimum wage, enterprise bargaining, Parliament’s return
DAVID SPEERS, HOST: Tony Burke, welcome. Given the cost of these closures to not only the Government but to the economy as we heard there, is it fair enough do you think for the Federal Government to be putting pressure on the states to get on with reopening?
TONY BURKE: Well, quickly, happy Mother's Day to the mums out there - especially those who for whatever reason have to spend today on their own. In terms of the difference between the states - this is very much an economic crisis caused by a health crisis. And that health crisis is at a different pace in different parts of the country. And I think it makes complete sense that different states are then going to respond at a different pace depending on where the virus is in their own region.
SPEERS: I want to get your thoughts on how it's going to work with a lot of people going back into the workplace in a very different environment. Businesses have been given all sorts of guidelines, depending on the industry sector, as to what to do to make the workplace safe. But what if workers don't feel it's safe enough? What should they do? What should their rights be?
BURKE: Look, one of the problems at the moment is the Government has offered guidelines but what people really need at the moment is very clear direction. I think a whole lot of the social distancing principles, I think Australia has been working those out and there's an absolute expectation on employers to be able to provide those social distancing principles at the workplace. It's probably in the employer's interest - a lot of workplaces have separated themselves into two teams. So if one group does in fact get the virus, then you've still got another team to be able to keep the workplace running. The challenge comes if someone needs to isolate and they don't have leave available. And I think this is a real weakness that we're looking at at the moment as people go back to work. We're telling people to get tested even if you have a scratchy throat. But in the real world, if you're in a situation where isolation means you're not going to be paid for a fortnight, there will be a lot of people thinking twice. And that's one of the risks with a lot of people going back to work.
SPEERS: Two parts just to pick up on what you said there. Firstly - the guidelines for employers should be clear directions. Are you suggesting there that there should be regulations with fines attached if a business doesn't have a COVID-safe workplace?
BURKE: I think we're in one of those situations where the more specific the Government is, the clearer they are with respect to penalties and things like that, I think that actually works in everyone's interests. I remember right at the beginning of this when the Prime Minister said that gatherings over 500 - it was just a piece of advice, not a direction. And even business was saying - no, no, no, set a rule, set clear boundaries, clear rules. That's in everyone's interests.
SPEERS: But with penalties? should there be a penalty if a cafe or a restaurant doesn't have adequate safety in the workplace?
BURKE: Of course there should be penalties. If you're putting people's health and safety at risk, there should be penalties attached to that.
SPEERS: The other issue you raised there is the issue of sick leave. Estimates are about a quarter of workers who don't have sick leave entitlements, casuals, contractors, labour hire, gig economy workers and so on. They are all being told, all of us are being told that if you get a sore throat, don't soldier on and don't turn up at work. But my understanding is that they can apply for two weeks of the JobSeeker payment equivalent – it’s called the sickness allowance. But is that clunky? What should happen here?
BURKE: The end thing that we want is to be able to make sure that we're dealing with the public health crisis. And that means we want to make sure no matter what, anyone who should stay away from work for two weeks does stay away from work for two weeks. Now, let's look at ... The Government, when they say JobSeeker is available, there are two problems with that. The first is that it is not available for everybody. And for example, if you're a worker who is not eligible, maybe because of visa status, maybe because of your age, then - it's not just whether or not we want that person to be paid, we actually don't want that person doing anything other than isolating. And if they're in a real world situation of I'll lose all my money, I think we know what they'll do. And the people who are eligible for JobSeeker - I'm not sure it passes the pub test to say well you can go down to Centrelink, you can register, you can wait for a long period, and eventually you'll get reimbursed at that rate. If at the end point people aren't going to do that and think that they've only got a niggle in the throat and maybe they should go to work, it's not simply a sick leave issue. It's actually a public health issue.
SPEERS: So what should happen for them?
BURKE: Look, we don't really mind how the Government decides, whether it's a mixture of Government payments and business payments, or what process the Government goes down. But they need to deal with this core issue. If we want everybody who feels that they have symptoms to be taking the isolation period, to be getting tested and taking that period off work. Even though they might feel well enough to go to work - if that's the end point that we want then we can't have them in a situation where they're looking at no bank balance for that period.
SPEERS: Let's turn to the arts and entertainment sector particularly. You've been raising a lot of concerns about this, as have others, amongst the hardest hit financially by this crisis. Most workers in the arts don't have a single employer therefore they're not eligible for the $1,500 JobKeeper payment. They can get the $1,100 a fortnight JobSeeker payment. Are you saying they should get JobKeeper and how would you structure that?
BURKE: There's a few ways to do it. If you were going to design JobKeeper to exclude the arts and entertainment industry, this is how you’d do it. Because this is an area where people work gig-to-gig, event-to-event, festival-to-festival. And in that half hour media conference, where the Prime Minister announced the first shutdowns, groups of 100 and 500 - people who had six months’ worth of forward employment, in half an hour they watched half a year's work just disappear. Now, you could attach them to a future employer that they were contracted to. There's a few different ways that you would be able to do it. But the problem is because a lot of it as well is for work that they did months ago, will get small cheques coming in, they potentially will be bounced on and off JobSeeker as well. And can I just say who we're talking about here. People often think about the sector as we're talking about celebrities. We're talking about the road crew. The crew on the set. We're talking about the technical workers, and we're talking about the artists themselves - most of whom are not huge celebrities on massive money. And all of whom are people who are in the same situation as other Australians right now of needing to pay their bills, needing to pay for where they live. Needing to pay for their dependants with no visible means of being able to do so.
SPEERS: More broadly on the JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments. They're
legislated to run for six months ending in September on the current legislation. Is it Labor's view they should be continued beyond that?
BURKE: I don't see how the Prime Minister's concept of “snap back” is going to work. I just don't see how it does David. You look at the projections that Josh Frydenberg has already provided - it's a long time before we get to employment levels as they were. Now unless you want people to suddenly be able to not pay their bills, unless you want people to suddenly vacate the premises where they live and handing back the keys to homes that they've mortgaged, then the Government is going to have to look at extending this. Think of the alternative – and I don't think that that is what we want Australia to look like in a few months.
SPEERS: So to be clear - Labor does believe that it should continue beyond six months?
BURKE: I certainly don't believe the hard deadlines that are there right now are going to be able to continue. So there are some people who’ve missed out the whole way through where this needs to be extended right now. Whether it be casuals, whether it be arts and entertainment. But there are other people in businesses that will not have got back, where this will be the difference - not only as to whether they have a livelihood but whether the business itself is able to afford to continue to exist.
SPEERS: What about for those in work at the moment? Do you support the ACTU push for a $30 a week increase in the minimum wage?
BURKE: We've never put a dollar figure on minimum wage increases. But I'd say two things. One - we do need to have a pay rise for people. And we've had flatlining wages for a very long time, so there needs to be a reasonable pay rise. But the second thing is the normal argument about - oh, you know, pay versus what it will mean for businesses. Because the international barriers are still going to be up for some time, our economy will never be more reliant on domestic demand and people spending money than it will be on
the other side of this crisis. And so, the impact of having a decent pay rise for people is going to be essential to the economy. So while I don't put a dollar figure on it, to have a reasonable pay rise is going to be very important.
SPEERS: Sure, but employers argue that they simply cannot afford that scale of pay rise right now. The Government says this as well, they believe that it will cost jobs and it will make it much, much harder to employ people?
BURKE: Yeah, I think that it also depends on which employers you talk to. So if you talk to people who are in retail or in hospitality, they are desperate to make sure that people are going to be able to spend money again. So while if it were only their own workforce, they might not want the pay rise to happen, they need the rest of the economy to be in a situation where it's spending. Think of our tourism industry on the other side of this. There will be no international tourists for some time. Unless there's domestic demand, they don't have a way forward.
SPEERS: Can I turn to enterprise agreements. The Government last month, amidst this crisis, in a bid for more flexibility, slashed the time period required to consult over changes to pay and conditions. It was seven days and they made it just 24 hours. Only for a 6-month window. We know you've got concerns about that. Parliament is back this week. Will you try in the Senate to overturn this Government regulation?
BURKE: Yes, we'll be trying to disallow it. I hope, procedurally, we'll be able to get to that point this week in the Senate. There's a few Senate procedural issues that that hinges on. But ultimately, this is a really dangerous change the Government's made, and it flies in the face of the cooperation that the union movement has been showing the Government during this period. If you think about it in real terms: an employer at the beginning of your shift can give you proposed changes to your enterprise agreement. At the end of your shift, you can send it off to your union or whoever it is, to try and get some advice. First thing the next day, you can have to vote in a show of hands with your employer there. And these aren't just changes where you say, it's only changes for six months. No, no, no - it's only six months where the voting period goes down to one day. But the changes that could be made can be permanent changes to your pay and conditions. It's a massive overreach from the Government. They shouldn't have done it. And I'm very hopeful that we'll get that knocked out in the Senate this week.
SPEERS: More broadly moving beyond this crisis - are you willing to look at more flexibility in the workplace? Or is this a sign that you want to keep the current rules in place as they are?
BURKE: We've been arguing for a long time that we need to be able to get bargaining moving again. We've had situations like the K-Mart agreement was a classic one, where you had massive support from the workforce. You had one particular commissioner knock the decision out. Eventually, the full bench ruled it back in. Bargaining is much harder at the moment and taking much longer than it should. Policies that get bargaining moving again are going to be really important, and you know, I don't think that anyone says every rule that's there at the moment should remain unchanged.
SPEERS: Final one - with Parliament sitting again this week, we've already seen from Anthony Albanese a bit of pressure being applied on the government over sports rorts and Angus Taylor and so on. Are we going to see a shift from Labor in Parliament back to more politics as usual?
BURKE: I think when the issues in front of us have been how to get through the pandemic, there's been an understandable moment of national unity. But right now, we really need to get back to scrutiny. If you're somebody who has had $10,000 taken wrongly from your superannuation account. If you're someone who has been locked out of JobKeeper, even though you're a worker and you've got your bills. If you're somebody who has been in a situation where you're a sporting club, you thought you were in a fair situation and you've just found out now that the Prime Minister's Office was in fact in charge of the final decision making on this, then you want the scrutiny of the Parliament. Not only should we be doing that this week, we also should be adopting a proper sitting calendar. It's ridiculous to have a situation where the rugby league is going to be going back and playing and the Prime Minister's saying that Parliament can't meet in the normal way.
SPEERS: Tony Burke, thanks for joining us.
BURKE: Great to be back.