TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS - JUNE 2, 2020

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS WITH TOM CONNELL
TUESDAY, 2 JUNE 2020 

SUBJECTS: Arts and entertainment workers, industrial relations, casual workers.

TOM CONNELL: Joining me for more on this is Tony Burke the Shadow Industrial Relations and Arts Minister. Thanks very much for your time this morning. Did you read the headlines, and was there any cheer in your heart, it appears there might be some cash injections including for any sort of businesses running this type of activity that's just been smashed by COVID?

TONY BURKE: I'm really hopeful Tom. The government certainly raised a lot of expectations today. For three months they've been denying that there was a problem here. And if they're going to do a turnaround that's a good thing. I hope they do it for both sections, ‘cause you need to look after both the workers in the industry and also to look after the businesses themselves. And for the workers of the industry - I saw during the break, I don't know if it ran everywhere in your reach but where I am in Sydney there was an ad for JobKeeper - with the slogan “getting your business back sooner”. The challenge is people in this industry have largely been excluded from JobKeeper and that's created some devastation for the last three months. Hopefully the government makes some bold decisions this week for the industry that I've got to say a lot of us in terms of the content and the streaming and everything we've been doing, we've been relying pretty heavily on our on our performers and the whole industry during lockdown.
 
CONNELL: So what's the pass mark here when you're looking at this? I mean is there a funding amount you're looking at, is it making sure you mentioned the workers, some of these sort of casual workers, they're not attached to permanent jobs that are in this industry, that's just the nature of it, whether they're looked after as well as the businesses. How are you going to give this a tick or otherwise?

BURKE: Anything they do to help I will welcome. Anything they do to help I will welcome. And then we'll look through it to see the extent to which they've been comprehensive in the response. I mean they've had plenty of time to think about it. You know, you read the front page of today's papers there's an implication that the government's been surprised that they thought people were sole traders and they would have been covered. From the time the announcement on JobKeeper was made we've been explaining to government that they have drawn a fence around this sector, because while some people are sole traders overwhelmingly people are employed as short-term casuals and as freelancers. And what that means is this isn't like the person who's turned up for their first casual job. Anthony Albanese and I were at a media conference last week held at the Enmore, one of the workers there who spoke to the cameras, Scott, he's been in the industry for 35 years. 34 of them have been as a casual. Now while he's not the person who we think of when we think of arts and entertainment, because we always think of the person who's in the spotlight, he's the one who holds the spotlight. And he is in a situation where he's found himself ineligible for JobKeeper. But in terms of a long term worker, and who we're told are the people who we want to make sure industry can easily keep close to during this period so that we can get a back up and running again - he's exactly the sort of person JobKeeper was meant to reach and for three months has been cut out.
 
CONNELL: All right. Well an announcement coming soon despite an interesting meeting apparently recently between the minister and some of the rest of the industry and states. So look perhaps once we have the detail we’ll talk to you again about it Tony Burke.
 
BURKE: Yeah I think the interesting part of that meeting was the state ministers knew what was going on but the federal government was still denying it.

CONNELL: Well look anyway it will say we'll assess it on when it comes to pass. Perhaps we're getting a little bit of how the sausage is made sometimes in all of this. I want to ask you about the headline today in The Australian: builders group’s wanting to be able to scrap Saturday penalty rates and also reduced casual shifts. They say the industry could collapse without this. What's your response?

BURKE: Well it's true that the industry needs there to be a rescue package and a few moments ago you had Anthony Albanese there talking about social housing, and different housing and infrastructure projects that Labor's been calling for. I've got to say this is not the first time we've had businesses claim that jobs will be saved if penalty rates are cut, and that there'll be more jobs if penalty rates are cut. We had that whole debate in the Parliament last term, with Scott Morrison and the government voting in favour of penalty rates cuts going through. Three years on, not one job was created by those penalty rate cuts. So I think we need - when we're talking about what the needs of the economy - you can easily fall into the trap of looking at just one business and pretending that that business is the whole economy. And with that business you say oh well if the wages bill was lower the business would be better off. The problem is we rely on demand. And we've had wages flatlining now for years. After the lockdown ends, when we get to the other side of this, the international borders will still be up for some time. We're going to be more reliant on domestic demand than any other time in living memory. Cutting wages is not a way of boosting domestic demand. We need people to be spending money. And so if you look across the whole economy I find it really hard to see what the builders have argued today that it in fact adds up.

CONNELL: If you talk about wages versus that demand. And you talk about a company that for example might not have to pay Saturday penalty rates in construction anymore, the increased amount of paying those penalty rates would result in it's never going to come back entirely. It's only in part right? So any saving they make on wages is a real one it's just diminished by the lack of demand.

BURKE: Yeah but if you go industry by industry and you look at each industry in isolation you'll always end up with the argument that you just put to me Tom. If you look at what will the Australian economy need you get a different answer. And that's the Australian economy needs people with job security, with good wages and with employment. It needs all three. And that's why we're not going to get through this with austerity. If we go through a path where we think it's all about Government cuts, and it's all about business cutting wages, we will be in a downward spiral where domestic demand will never get moving again. You know confidence is going to be hard after this. Confidence is already going to be hard simply because of what we've all been through. Cutting wages on the way through will simply make confidence worse.

CONNELL: There's a recent court case has attracted a lot of attention and might well be wheeled out during the next IR reform pitch. It's the mine worker, a casual employee who is on rolling contracts for more than three years. A court found because the work was regular, certain, constant and predictable they were eligible to full-time employment rights plus keeping the entitlement to 25 per cent loading as a casual. Now you've said that Labor would not allow legislation to overturn this type of decision. Are you saying that all workers in this position should get both the permanent position a full-time position and the 25 per cent loading?

BURKE: That's a lot more than I've ever said Tom. A lot more than I've ever said. This decision dealt with the concept of whether or not the employer has made a “firm advance commitment”. Now this particular worker, let's look at the facts of that case. First of all this worker had been given a firm advance commitment of a roster for the next 12 months. So it's not just looking back as to whether or not they tended to work the same shifts, they'd be given a firm advance commitment. They're the words of the decision, and it was a 12 month roster they'd been given. It was also the case that for this particular worker the casual was earning less than the full timers the casual was working side by side with. This was a rort from a labour hire company, where the permanent workers not getting a casual loading were earning more than the person who was being called a casual. This was a complete rort. It was being used as a way of undercutting everybody's pay.

CONNELL: Just how this decision should apply to the economy then. You're saying this workers should have that option and be able to become a permanent employee but never both. That wouldn't make sense would it?

BURKE: You're in a different definition of casual to what the court decided. You're in the definition where you just look at whether or not technically on the pay slip there was a loading and then you work it out from there. What the court decided, and what I think is right, is if you had a firm advance commitment of employment you were never a casual. If you have a firm advance commitment you're a permanent employee and that's what that's what the decision was. Some people have wanted to pretend that it's much bigger than it was, and that will apply to every casual, every casual who works regular shifts. That's not what the court found. But if there's a firm advance commitment that's the definition of a permanent employee and you should get your leave.

CONNELL: And this is about the right to permanence and being full time not being able to somehow get both. Just to clarify your position on this.

BURKE: There are lots of people who are permanent employees who are paid above an award rate. Lots of people who are permanents, you can't say because there is an above award payment that ‘oh well that was a casual loading and therefore you lose your leave’. The definition of whether or not you are a permanent employee is whether there was a firm advance commitment to all of your shifts -

CONNELL: (inaudible) … the 25 per cent loading, which is supposed to be for holiday and sick leave, and also getting holiday and sick leave.

BURKE: There's lots of people who are paid 25 percent of the above award rate and let's not forget this particular worker, the rort that was happening at that mine, was that they were using a lower base rate than all the permanent employees employed by the company. So they weren't paying an extra 25 per cent. That worker was earning about 30 per cent less than the permanent employees doing the same job working side-by-side with him. So for people in cafes and restaurants to think that somehow this has an immediate knock-on to people who happen to regularly work their Thursday or Sunday shifts or something like that – that's not what the court decided.

CONNELL: We're out of time. IR set to be a big discussion, and the arts as well, so we'll talk down the track. Tony Burke thanks for your time.

BURKE: Look forward to it Tom.
 
ENDS

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