TRANSCRIPT: PRESS CONFERENCE - SYDNEY - JANUARY 14, 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
PRESS CONFERENCE
SYDNEY
THURSDAY, 14 JANUARY 2021

SUBJECTS: Scott Morrison’s plan to cut workers’ pay; vaccines; trade; JobKeeper.

TONY BURKE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: At the end of last year the government dropped some industrial relations legislation. There was then one piece in the papers that implied they were going to back down on parts of the legislation. But it was a piece unattributed which no member of the government has - on the record - backed in, at all. To this day, the government is still committed to every piece of that legislation. And that includes the pay cut for Australian workers. The pay cut to the heroes of the pandemic is still government policy. It's still in front of the Parliament. And it's still ready to be debated when Parliament returns in a few weeks’ time.

If you look at the pay cuts that people are facing under that legislation with the suspension of the Better Off Overall Test. First of all, we shouldn't buy the government spin that those agreements will only last two years. There are still agreements involving pay cuts that are on the books dating back to John Howard's era. Once you allow a suspension of the test workers will be worse off. And for some of the worst employers those agreements will remain on foot for years. I wanted today release the impact of these changes that the government's going to take to the parliament on a range of ordinary workers for just the impact that we would have over the five weeks of the summer holidays. The summer holidays is a time where, particularly for parents, it's a really expensive time. It's more expensive, initially, for the purchases that happened around Christmas. It's then more expensive as the kids are demanding different things they want to do each day. And at the end of that period, you've got the back to school costs. These are all real costs borne by parents. And that's one of the reasons why a whole lot of parents, during this time, choose to work on the public holidays. We've got public holidays on Christmas Day, on Boxing Day, on New Year's Day, on Australia Day. The impact of the government's legislation is on every one of those days penalty rates can be slashed to the ordinary rate of pay.

What does that mean for ordinary workers? The following industries, it means you could get a pay cut, just over these five weeks, just because of public holiday penalty rates you could get a pay cut of more than $840 just over those five weeks. Fast food, retail, level two hospitality, level five registered nurse, or a waiter. Industries that a whole lot of people go to during this time. But the following industries face pay cuts just across those public holidays of more than $1,000: aged care workers, workers in the finance industry, the banking industry, the insurance industry, cleaners, workers in hair and beauty. More than $1,000 gone from the pay packets of ordinary Australians because of legislation that's in front of the Parliament right now that the government has still not retreated from. It's not a surprise. If you've got a test called “better off overall” and you get rid of it, no surprise what will happen. You've either got a test making sure workers are better off or you'll get agreements where workers are worse off. And the government remains committed to making sure that workers are worse off.

It's extraordinary to hear what the government is passionate about. Now I've got to say, I'm hearing a more passionate defense of Donald Trump's access to Twitter than I'm hearing of workers access to their own pay packets from members of Mr Morrison's government. We need to have a situation where, after what was the toughest year for workers, that we don't find in 2021 that they're rewarded with a pay cut. But that's exactly what current government policy says and what the Morison government is planning.

JOURNALIST: Can I ask you, the government asked CSL whether it could produce Novavax if approved by the TGA. But CSL says it doesn't have the capacity or capability to do so. Do you have any concerns with Novavax being produced overseas in terms of timing and availability?

BURKE: Okay, I'll leave it to Chris Bowen to talk on the on the detail of this, as Chris is obviously much more directly involved than myself. What I will say is the government has been slow to act at every stage when it's come to the issue of the vaccine. Labor was calling to make sure that we had contracts when other countries were developing contracts with a range of companies. We were very slow to do that. And still, there was a long period where the government was arguing that even once it had been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration there'd be a significant delay before the full rollout. But I'd leave it to Chris Bowen to go further on that.

JOURNALIST: There are more than 70 ships loaded with Australian coal that have been stranded in Chinese waters for months as Beijing refuses to allow the imports. Do Australian coal exporters need to look to other markets?

BURKE: The government across a range of industries has not had a plan to make sure that we can diversify our risk. It's not only coal. There's a range of industries where if you end up in a situation where you're disproportionately reliant on one market, then if challenges occur in that market it's a hit to the entire Australian economy. Without a plan, I don't know how you get this fixed. But the simplest part of any plan, with anything with respect to trade, is for the government to play an active role in diversifying markets for Australia.

JOURNALIST: You spoke about people having their pay cut earlier. Do you have any further thoughts or details on the plan for what you would propose for an extension of Jobkeeper?

BURKE: With respect to JobKeeper, the government is cutting too hard. From the start they left too many people behind. From the start and the design of this they ended up with some people receiving much more than what they earned, and other people being in a situation where they were left with nothing. That has been a really unfair outcome, for so many millions of Australian workers. You can go through the list but you know, the people who run catering services for our airlines at Dnata missed out altogether. Arts and entertainment workers, and million casuals - so many people just missed out on JobKeeper altogether. For those who made it in, at the exact time there's still significant lockdowns for many industries, they’re in a situation where their jobs are no longer going to be supported. The thing that we need out of all of this is to make sure that as we emerge from the period of lockdown that you've got domestic demand in the economy. Now, cutting JobKeeper too early means people won't spend money. Cutting people's wages means people won't spend money. We're not going to have overseas tourists here spending money. Unless there's domestic demand, you're not going to get the sort of recovery that Australia needs. So all of these issues go to the same point. Whether it's cutting JobKeeper, cutting Jobseeker, or cutting wages - what the government's doing, is Mr. Morrison is making sure Australians have less household money. He's making sure there's less money to pay the bills in every household. There's no area that he's missed: he’s hitting incomes for wages, wage cut, JobKeeper cut, JobSeeker cut. At every single turn the story is the same. It's harder to pay your household bills. And in those circumstances, at the exact time we're going to need to have people spending money, Mr. Morrison's making sure they can’t.

JOURNALIST: Do you have any ideas about how long JobKeeper should be extended for?

BURKE: It needs to be based on the needs of the economy. It can't simply be arbitrary dates. And it certainly can't be the argument that they've offered today, which is across the whole nation there's a whole lot of money that's been saved, therefore everybody's okay. Now, the reason there’s a whole lot of extra savings, part of that is the way that some of these funds have been so poorly targeted and have gone to individuals who might not have needed them the same way, while other people have been left behind. But if you're one of the people who've been left behind it's no consolation to you that there's somebody else with a whole lot of money in the bank. And what Mr. Morrison is effectively saying to Australians doing it tough is he's going to cut your wages, your benefits, and that's okay because somebody else has a whole lot of money in the bank. Thank you.

ENDS