TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS - FEBRUARY 5, 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS WITH LAURA JAYES
FRIDAY, 5 FEBRUARY 2021

SUBJECTS: Hotel quarantine; Helloworld’s pay cut for workers; Scott Morrison’s pay cut for workers.

LAURA JAYES, HOST: Appreciate your time Tony Burke. First of all, we just heard from Daniel Andrews and he seemed to be suggesting that with these leaks out of hotel quarantine maybe the number of repatriations needs to be limited. Do you agree?

TONY BURKE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: There's a whole lot of Australians stranded overseas and the government said that they would get them back by Christmas, and they haven't delivered on that. The pathway, part of the pathway for being able to make sure that we handle this better, including Australians stranded overseas, is for the Commonwealth to take responsibility for quarantine. Under the Constitution it's their responsibility. Jane Halton provided them with a report on how to do it. But until the Commonwealth takes this step, we end up with a situation where people who might have the virus are all going to our biggest cities. And we have a significant problem every time where, because the Commonwealth hasn't taken control of this, every outbreak’s had the same association. And that's been people working multiple jobs because of insecure work. Same every time.

JAYES: Might you have this issue as well that, okay, we have repatriation flights, we need to get 40,000 Australians home, where do they go? Because if a Premier in Western Australia, for example, decides to arbitrarily shut their borders, why should it be on the rest of the country to take these people that need to come home and might very well be carrying that mutant strain?

BURKE: It's always been the responsibility of the Commonwealth under the Constitution to deal with quarantine. What Mr. Morrison has done, as he often does, is try to sheet all the responsibility when something's difficult to the Premier's and refuses to get the work done himself. Jane Halton provided the report to the government on how to deal with this in a safe way, in a comprehensive way, and Mr. Morrison's refused to do it.

JAYES: It's my understanding that there was advice from elsewhere, perhaps from the department, that that wasn't the advice, that this is essentially a function of public health because it relates to hospital ICU capacity. So the better division of responsibility is that the Commonwealth to run you know, the borders, pre-flight testing and the like, and then the states to do the other end of things. Do you accept that logic?

BURKE: The Constitution says quarantine is with the Commonwealth. I'm not sure how you describe hotel quarantine other than “quarantine”.

JAYES: Okay, well, we'll see what happens help with the national cabinet today. What do you hope the outcome is? Do you want to see things like Howard Springs opened, taking up that often offer from the Wagner family?

BURKE: Look, there's a series of those options which were recommended by Jane Halton in her report. Ultimately, you want to make sure that finally the Commonwealth takes some responsibility here. I think, when we look at what's kept us safe, it's largely been a whole lot of decisions from Premiers, both sides of politics, often which Mr. Morrison has railed against some of their some of their decisions but it's kept us safe. It's been the right thing to do. But we need the Commonwealth to take responsibility here. Otherwise, we're simply not going to solve the joint problems of making sure that we can deal with the permanent jobs so that we're not finding someone gets infected, and suddenly we work out that they've been working all over the place. And secondly, making sure we've got some options other than the most populated parts of Australia.

JAYES: You've got to admit that it has been working pretty well so far. Hotel quarantine we've had for months and months. In the UK, they only introduced it a couple of weeks ago. And look at the situation there. When you're talking about wages for these security people that are working in hotel quarantine systems, are you talking about a government specific subsidy for them?

BURKE: There's a few different ways of doing it. But ultimately, I don't think you can get away from the clear evidence that every time we've had a breakout, we immediately go to the fact that the individual concerned was working in multiple workplaces. We've had the same in aged care where you've had people working at multiple workplaces because they can't get enough hours in the same job. It's insecure work. And what we've effectively found, you don't have security in our health system, if you don't have security at work.

JAYES: Okay, so is it a special subsidy that you're pushing for?

BURKE: I don't mind how they do it. Like I don't mind which pathway they choose. I just think you can't get away from the clear evidence we have at the moment as to how it's gone wrong each time?

JAYES: All right. Let's talk about JobKeeper. There was an example put forward by your colleague Richard Marles in question time yesterday. Helloworld. Yes, they're a big company. They also happen to be a Liberal Party donor. Isn't it just the reality of what happens post JobKeeper that there are going to be wages cuts.

BURKE: Helloworld has become Hellopaycut. And what we're seeing now is the first example of what's in store. Because with JobSeeker being cut, JobKeeper being cut, and the wage cut, all coming in at the same time. The defense that the government has been using has been to say employers wouldn’t do that. And you've got this huge protection because employees wouldn’t agree to a pay cut? Well, at a time of uncertainty, we now have in black and white, what the future is going to look like if the government gets away with its plan. And its pay cuts, on this occasion more than $15,000, where people are being told your job is at risk unless you agree to that, and sign here for the pay cut. It's real. It's in black and white, and if they get the legislation through, and then JobKeeper falls off a cliff on the date that they've appointed, we're going to be seeing a whole lot more of this.

JAYES: So what do you want to happen? Do you want JobKeeper just to be extended in perpetuity?

BURKE: Well, certainly this example is in the tourism industry. And while we have industries, such as tourism, such as arts and entertainment, where the key reason why the companies are in difficult times isn't because of a particular problem with the business, it's because of active decisions of government – on public good public health grounds – but decisions of government that are preventing them from operating.

JAYES: Okay, I’m going to pull you up there. The government has said there will be targeted assistance for those people and what might not just come through the same mechanism that has been JobKeeper. So is it acceptable to you to see some kind of grant? There's a New South Wales experience that seems to work pretty well. There's another one announced this week for those people that are affected by the Northern Beaches lockdown, for example?

BURKE: Well, the government keeps saying they might offer something but can I just put it in these terms. People are being asked to sign up to their pay cut today. It went into their inboxes yesterday. They're being asked to sign up to the pay cut now. If we end up now with the government coming forward with something then that’ll be profit for the business, it won't change the fact that the workforce will be locked into a pay cut. Because that's what the government wants to happen. To have Simon Birmingham on this program a little bit earlier today just describing it as “structural adjustment”. As though this is just the sort of change that happens. Well, what does that mean in the real world? It means the bills that you've been putting off because your income went down so much last year, you're still not able to keep up with. The mortgage payments that you put off – you thought now you'd be able to catch up but you now find you're faced with a pay cut, or the threat that you might not have a job. These are real impacts that are happening in people's households and decisions they're being faced with right now. And the government says we might announce a sweetener later. That doesn't change the fact that people are going to see their household income cut.

JAYES: Okay, so everyone needs to plan, including workers and including businesses. So are you saying this needs to happen sooner rather than later? So then everyone, both sides of this argument can factor things in? More broadly, Tony Burke, and we’ll end on this. Do you think with this generous wage subsidy, the likes of which we haven't seen before, in JobKeeper, is there an unspoken or maybe an explicit accord that workers need to have with business. The government has bailed them out? Do they then need to do the right thing?

BURKE: And workers have. Last year we saw the highest level of cooperation from the union movement, from workers, in making massive adjustments, in putting to one side whether something was what they were employed to do, and just doing what would be helpful as the nature of the workforce changed radically and the nature of what you did each day changed radically. People on significantly higher incomes have gone down to the JobKeeper rate during this time so they could keep their relationship with their employer. At the end of the year where you've had that level of cooperation, the government responds with saying, “Okay, now it's going to be all on the worker. Now, it's time for the pay cuts.” And that's why we've got legislation before the parliament right now that removes the safety net, that says every allowance, every shift allowance, every penalty rate can be gone, you can go right down to nothing more than your ordinary hourly rate. And that can be approved by the Fair Work Commission. Can I tell you, if you remove the safety net workers will land with a thud.

JAYES: Okay let's go through in detail the Industrial Relations proposed changes next week when we get you back on, there’s too much to cover right now. Tony Burke, appreciate your time.

BURKE: Thanks, Laura.

ENDS