TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS - MONDAY, 11 MAY 2020

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS WITH TOM CONNELL
MONDAY, 11 MAY 2020

SUBJECTS: JobKeeper; disallowance motion.

TONY BURKE: The call on the budget is a very real issue and I don't want ignore the fact or supersede the fact that we called for a wage subsidy. We wanted there to be a wage subsidy because it is a way of preserving the relationship between the employee and the employer. And that matters. If you look at what Chris Richardson said in that package, if you determine to make sure that you get the economy right then having that relationship between the employer and the employee preserved is really important. It's also the case though that there are areas within this program where there is government waste and there's no doubt about that. There are areas within this program - we never called on the government to turn a wage subsidy into a wage multiplier. And to have a situation where a woman supporting a family who's been working as a casual teacher for five years misses out because she doesn't have 12 months with a single school, whereas someone who's in first year uni who's been doing a job for a few hours every week suddenly gets a massive multiplication of what they're earning. The waste in that is just ridiculous, and you know the government's made those decisions all on their own. Similarly no one told the government to be paying the JobKeeper payment in circumstances where it doesn't get passed through to the employee because they're running down their leave at that time. These are all challenges with the design that we've raised the whole way through with the government. It's a bit odd for them now to be surprised that it's costing so much. Overall it's a good it's good to have this program but the targeting of it leaves a lot to be desired and that's going to be a challenge on the other side.

TOM CONNELL: What about targeting in terms of industry specific? When you look at the forward months, assuming we have can the handbrakes eased you’re not going to see the need for this presumably in white collar businesses. Some might still be struggling but you’re going to have to adapt and figure out a new business model, whatever it might be. Hospitality might be one of the few still needed, and that makes it more affordable. Would that be a smart approach?

BURKE: Well and the other thing, can I say, if you're going to say industries will be last to come back online – one of those is the $111 billion industry in arts entertainment and the events industry - they've been excluded from the scheme the whole way through. So there are significant challenges with design here, but the real test that we've got here is – the companies are only eligible because of the downturn that they're facing. If we're presuming that the downturn is now no longer going to be there then that's a different situation. But if companies are facing a massive downturn because of decisions that were made by the government, then it's in the interests of the economy long-term that we keep the relationship between employee and employer.

CONNELL: I want to ask you about industrial relations, you’re seek a disallowance motion. This would reverse a law change that meant the IR bargaining period can be done in a day rather than seven days. The understanding is this has only been used five times so far, can you point to any issues where it’s been used?

BURKE: The fact that you've got a law that allows abuses doesn't mean you wait for the abuses before you knock it out. I mean what we've got here - we've been dealing with the consequences of social isolation in the business world now for many, many weeks. And to think that there's going to be an idea of a change that you only need 24 hours notice on at this point is absurd. If you think about how this works in the real world Tom - what it means is this: someone turns up for their shift and is told here are the changes, and realistically is likely to be told and I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep your job unless you do it. The next day they're expected to vote, having not had time to get advice on what's involved in those changes. And the real deception here is the government keeps saying the change is time limited. But the changes to your agreement, to your terms and conditions of employment, to your pay, are not temporary. They're permanent.

CONNELL: I do want to ask you about that in a moment. But just on the issue itself, you’re saying this is the potential abuse of it. There is a review the minister’s doing after two months – we’re nearly half way to that moment and so far we don’t appear to have any abuses of it. Do you agree with that, that so far there’s no issue?

BURKE: I'm not across the detail of the five different that you've referred to but that's hardly the point. You don't set laws based on, we'll wait until there's an abuse and then we'll decide whether or not it's fair. If a rule has been put in place that allows an extraordinary opportunity for abuse, where there is no urgent reason to have that law, then why do it? Why do it?

CONNELL: You say when this was brought in we had a lot of weeks to adjust to it and -
 
BURKE: No no. And throughout all of that time the union movement and businesses were working cooperatively to get changes through to various agreements to various awards to make sure that they could deal with the consequences of the pandemic. So for the major employers, for organised labor, you actually have already had a situation - before this regulation was even introduced - where changes were being made cooperatively. What this one allows is for workers to not have an opportunity to be able to get good advice and to talk to each other about a permanent, proposed change to their pay, to their working conditions. Now, why on earth can you imagine a situation now where an employer will think of something that they want to change permanently to someone's conditions and they need to make the change within 24 hours. It's an absurd proposition. The only consequence of that lack of notice is to make sure that employees don't get a chance to get good advice.
 
CONNELL: When you talk about the potential change here, would you be open then – because one of your big issues was whether this needs to be a permanent change to pay and conditions – my understanding is it would be the normal agreement so two, three, four years. What about a situation where the change to conditions last six months?

BURKE: Well I put to the government right at the start of this whether or not they wanted to have some sort of cooperative conversation where they could raise what the challenges were. They were raising, it was a massive problem for business. Well I've got to say if you're saying only five so far have taken advantage of it, the government's argument for doing this in the first place doesn't hold up. And the opportunity for abuse is still there.
But when I put to the government the issue of having a conversation about it, they knocked that out. The union movement raised the same issue. The government wasn't interested in a conversation therefore disallowance is what we've been left with.
 
CONNELL: It’s a bit hard to run both sides isn’t it? On the one side you’re saying it can’t be urgent, they’ve only used it five times – on the other can’t you say doesn’t that show there have been no abuses here, it might have been really important for some businesses and no one so far is abusing it.

BURKE: I've said to you with respect to those five, I don't know the details across all five of those of those ones that you've referred to. That's a number that the government's briefed out -
 
CONNELL: (Interjecting)
 
BURKE: I've told you the challenge that we have is the principle that we're dealing with here of what it allows. We're in Parliament House, we're in the building where what you decide is what laws will you put through and support and what behaviour will they allow. We have something right now that the government has put forward that the Parliament gets a chance to consider, as to whether or not it is fair to allow an employer to put permanent changes to the terms and conditions of employment for their workers without the workers getting a chance to get advice. And that's not fair, it's not reasonable and it's not required.
 
CONNELL: We’re almost out of time, just briefly, do you have support for this?

BURKE: I never second guess anything across the Senate, but the principle of the fact that they are permanent changes to agreements is an issue that does matter to a very large number of senators.
 
ENDS