TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS - SUNDAY, 5 JULY 2020

E&OE TRANSCRIPT 
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS SUNDAY AGENDA WITH KIERAN GILBERT
SUNDAY, 5 JULY 2020

SUBJECTS: Eden Monaro by-election; JobKeeper; Mathias Cormann.

KIERAN GILBERT, HOST: Tony Burke, thanks for your time. Is there a sense of relief within Labor ranks this morning? It looks like Labor will hold on to Eden Monaro?

TONY BURKE: Look certainly we're very hopeful right at the moment. I'm not going to make the mistake that the Liberal Party made last night, of effectively running the victory lap at half time. But where we're certainly very hopeful. We finished last night significantly in front and you'd certainly rather be in Kristy McBain's position this morning than anyone else's.
 
GILBERT: The trend by-elections is for a swing to the opposition, away from government. This has seen a swing on primary terms away from Labor. What do you say to the argument from Angus Taylor and others that this is damaging to the leadership of Anthony Albanese?
 
BURKE: Well certainly on the primary vote you're right, but the two-party preferred appears to have gone the other way, in the other direction. There's a certain desperation. It wasn't just Angus Taylor in your interview just then. Both of the networks including here that ran coverage last night had Liberal spokespeople on who were desperate - like a real weird desperation - to try to go after Anthony Albanese last night. And effectively they were arguing that if Labor lost it would be really bad for him and if Labor won it would still be really bad for him. You look at this and the only thing I can presume is that their research is showing that the authenticity of Anthony Albanese is a real foil to the marketing image of Scott Morrison. And they're just desperate to try to cause him some damage. But certainly for where we're at at the moment with the results after preferences have been distributed – and you've got to take preferences into account when you've got a by-election with 14 candidates running – after preferences are distributed we're significantly in front at the close of counting last night. So we're in a very good position there.

GILBERT: You are a member of parliament but you represent an area of western Sydney. You know the challenges that Labor has faced in dealing with the traditional blue-collar voter in recent times, that vote has been diminished and last night we saw some swings against Labor in the heart of Queanbeyan. Queanbeyan booths that would normally suggest they would be heavily favoring Labor. Have you got some work to do to reconnect to your traditional support base?

BURKE: I certainly don't take it the way that Angus Taylor just described it in the previous interview. Because you know we'd be talking about a very different outcome from last night's vote if a word that Angus Taylor had just said was true. You never take anyone's support for granted. Never. And you know we went into the by-election last night with three really strong assets: our leader, our candidate and our values. Anthony Albanese connected with the voters there. Kristy McBain, you see that speech sher gave last night – she's a star. And I'm really hopeful that she walks straight into those doors at the House of Representatives when parliament returns. But importantly our values are critically important here. Now right at the moment we're in a global pandemic and so people are wishing governments around the country to succeed at the state and federal level. You would have even seen our behaviour as an opposition. You know we haven't been doing the constant daily throwing of rocks that is often viewed as core work for an opposition because we want people to follow the health advice. We want the government to succeed. We want Australians to get through the pandemic together. So there’s a whole lot going on there. But in terms of the blue collar vote that you describe -  you never take anyone's vote for granted. And if you listen pretty carefully to what Angus Taylor just said in your previous interview, they're going out of this by-election having received no messages at all. They say, business as usual, nothing matters, even if they might end up with a swing away from them at a time where all the public polling was indicating something very different. So you know, you don't take votes for granted.

GILBERT: Is it also an example of Labor having a much more professional effort in this by-election with that postal campaign that you ran? So the comparison was about 40 postal votes sent out by Labor headquarters at the general election, with Mike Kelly running, and upwards of 4000 postals in this by-election, which showed a very concerted effort to mobilise the postal vote. Is that's something that's feeding into this optimism and final number?

BURKE: I think that it feeds into two things. It can feed into the reality of making sure that people get to vote. But you also send a message to people that you're not taking them for granted. And that's at the exact same time that people increasingly feel there's a government that's leaving people behind. Now you know people felt it during the drought, they saw it during the bushfires, and they're now fearing it as we get closer to the end of JobKeeper that this government's going to increasingly leave people behind. And the Australian way is very much, as a nation, we want everyone to be able to move forward without leaving people behind. You know that's the sort of country we are. And so the postal vote issue I think also just goes to something much deeper: which is Labor has sent a message pretty loudly that we don't want to leave people behind, that we don't take any votes for granted, that we are out there wanting to earn the support of every single individual. 

GILBERT: In that issue that you're talking about, the JobKeeper component, from the various polling that's been done, it has been a popular initiative that the government's undertaken. The Prime Minister's approval rate approval rating is soaring. Wouldn't that have been a net positive in the electorate, that government's support that has is still flowing through until at least the end of September.

BURKE: Throughout all of this Kieran there are three things that we've called for at different points that the government has first ridiculed and then done. For years we've said listen to the science, listen to the expert advice on all issues. Secondly we have said that $40 a day is not enough for someone with unemployment benefits to live on. And thirdly we said during this pandemic we needed to have a wage subsidy. On each of those three issues, when we first called for them the government, even on the floor of the parliament, has ridiculed us. And then fortunately during the pandemic they've adopted those values. Now that's a good thing. And when a government relents against being so stubborn and does something that Labor's been calling for then then that's a good thing. But in their design of JobKeeper they've still left people behind. So yes, having a wage subsidy is a good thing, tick. But in the design of how it's been implemented. How do you justify, say if you're at a supermarket, how do you justify that the woman working on a checkout who has been there as a casual for 11 months, working five days a week and supporting a family misses out on JobKeeper, but the kid who does a shift a week, who still lives at home with their parents while they're doing tertiary study, they get JobKeeper and end up receiving up to ten times more than what they are earning as a taxpayer subsidy? How do you justify that? That's exactly some of the waste and mismanagement that's come through here. So yes, by and large people look at there's a wage subsidy, good. But they then look at two other things: one, has it been implemented competently? And two, is it going to be withdrawn early? And one of the tactics that the government adopted, and yes they got more votes as a result than they otherwise would have as a result, was to keep secret what their plans are for September. Now I'll tell you, and it's not just workers benefiting from JobKeeper, it's businesses being kept going. I'm hearing it in the exact areas of Sydney that you described, everywhere we go. If the government seriously thinks they can take JobKeeper away in September en masse, then we are heading to an economic cliff and now they managed to buy to keep their report secret. They avoided that issue during the by-election but I've got to say this is a very real issue on people being left behind as we move to that economic cliff.
 
GILBERT: We're almost out of time. I want to get your thoughts on the departure of Mathias Cormann. He's going to leave parliament by the end of the year. Apparently he's going to run for the Secretary-General position at the OECD. Would Labor support him in that, would there be a bipartisanship in supporting the outgoing Senate leader?

BURKE: It's not for me to make that declaration Kieran, but what I what I will say is this: while he hasn't gone yet we certainly will wish him well. He's been a very significant figure in Australian politics, has been true to his values, and in negotiations to my knowledge has been somebody who's been an honest broker in those negotiations. In terms of political legacy, I think he's a classic example of some of the lessons you learn when in government. I shadowed him when he first arrived as a Minister and a whole lot of what he was saying then, about turning around surpluses straight away, about claiming all the debt was Labor's – before the pandemic ever hit it he'd already overseen the doubling of Australia's debt, he'd already seen the worst set of fiscal books that have been overseen by any Finance Minister. And ultimately now, at this point of his career they've been faced with an economic crisis, as we were and they've realised stimulus is the only option to keep people in jobs. So I wish him well. I hope that during the course of his career he's learnt that some of the criticisms that he made of Labor are in fact much louder criticisms of himself now. And hopefully that leads a more mature political conversation as we go on.

GILBERT: Tony Burke, we’ll talk to you soon.

ENDS