TRANSCRIPT: DOORSTOP INTERVIEW - YEPPOON - APRIL 20, 2021

TONY BURKE MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE ARTS
MANAGER OF OPPOSITION BUSINESS
MEMBER FOR WATSON
 
SENATOR MURRAY WATT
SHADOW MINISTER FOR NORTHERN AUSTRALIA
SHADOW MINISTER FOR DISASTER AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
SHADOW MINISTER FOR QUEENSLAND RESOURCES
LABOR SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND
 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
YEPPOON
TUESDAY, 20 APRIL 2021

SUBJECTS: Same job, same pay; jobs in Central Queensland; LNP and One Nation voting for more casualisation; mining; renewable energy and hydrogen; net zero 2050; manufacturing; Labor’s National Reconstruction Fund; Labor’s CQ federal candidates.

MURRAY WATT, SHADOW MINISTER FOR NORTHERN AUSTRALIA: Well, it's terrific to be back here in Yeppoon on a beautiful, fine autumn day. The purpose of the trip that I'm doing with my colleague Tony Burke is really to talk about jobs in Central Queensland. I'm really grateful that Tony's been able to spend a couple of days here in Central Queensland, meeting with mine workers in Moranbah both this morning and last night, and meeting with manufacturing businesses and workers here in Yeppoon today.

Can I also thank Mark and Kelly, the owners of Keppel Brand, where we are today - if you've bought a crumbed sausage from a Caltex or Puma service station anywhere in Australia, it's likely to have been made right here in Yeppoon at Keppel Brand. So it's been fabulous to get to talk with them and their team and hear about the growth that their company is undergoing as we broaden out and rebuild manufacturing in Australia.

I'll let Tony cover off this in much more detail than me, but as I say, why we're in Central Queensland is to keep talking about the importance of good, secure jobs. What we were hearing from mine workers in Moranbah yesterday is that we've seen too much casualisation, too much labour hire, too much insecure work for people. And on this Government's watch, this has just exploded and left more and more people in insecure work. And that's why it's so tremendous to be here at Keppel Brand that, as a result of state government support, their company has not only been able to increase the number of jobs here in manufacturing, but to make more of them permanent, more of them secure for people as well. Because we know that's good for the workers, it's good for their families, it's good for the businesses because they have loyal, committed staff, but it's also good for local economies because people have the certainty to be able to get out there and spend in local shops and create more jobs in the process.

But I'm sure Tony would like to cover off some of the particular announcements Labor's made to make sure that people here in Central Queensland have more secure jobs in the future. Thanks a lot.

TONY BURKE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: Thanks very much, Murray. You couldn't get a bigger contrast between the meeting this morning with a whole lot of workers desperate for a permanent job, and the workers I've just met with here at Keppel Brand.

People want good secure jobs. We saw during the pandemic, we've got a third of Australian workers now with no leave entitlements. A third of Australian workers without job security. And the workers I was just chatting to here, were talking about the difference that makes as to whether you can buy your home, whether you can keep in front of your bills. And it makes a difference to good business owners like we've got here to be able to get the loyal staff that come from that. So what we want is for that sense of loyalty and that sense of a good, secure job that these workers have to be something that spreads across Australia.

The mine workers I met with this morning have a key problem - that the people with the less secure jobs are being paid less, have no entitlements, and so they are constantly at risk.

We need a principle for them of 'same job, same pay'. Because you need to make sure that wages don't get undercut by labour hire arrangements that simply undercut the site rate. Labour hire arrangements that take away job security. And that's not just important for workers like the ones I met this morning, it's also the businesses like the one we're at here. Because the good employers should not find themselves in a situation where they get undercut by competitors engaging in those sorts of arrangements.

Same job, same pay shouldn't be a complicated policy. And yet it's something that we don't have in Australia at the moment. And under a Labor Government, we will.

JOURNALIST: For those workers here in Central Queensland, what is Labor proposing that they would do if they were elected?

BURKE: The simple change for them would be same job, same pay. You'd have a situation where it's no longer the case that labour hire and outsourcing and subcontracting can be used in a way that cuts the hourly rate at that site.

We also need to end the rorting of casual arrangements. Now the workers who I've just met with here, if they wanted to move to a permanent job, they were able to. But the workers I met with this morning, they're workers who want a permanent job and it's simply not being made available to them. You know, we've all, at different points in our lives, had casual jobs. And when you're only got casual expenses, if you have a casual job, it works, it works fine. But there's no such thing as 'casual rent'. There's no such thing as a 'casual mortgage'. Your bills aren't casual. And if you're in a situation where you're trying to hold a household together, you need to be in a situation where a secure job is available. That's the message to Central Queensland today.

JOURNALIST: What more should the Government be doing on the casualised workforce front?

BURKE: Well the Government at the moment, Mr Morrison has gone in the exact opposite direction. So only a few weeks ago, Mr Morrison and One Nation voted together to make casualisation easier. They voted together against the interests of the mine workers of Central Queensland to say 'if the employer says you are casual, then that's the end of the story'. And if it's being rorted? There are people there I met with who are on 12-month rosters and the employer's claiming they're in a casual job. Twelve month rosters. That's not a casual job. And yet that's what's happening to a whole lot of Central Queensland mine workers.

No-one from Mr Morrison's Government should claim to be a friend of those workers. And no-one from One Nation should claim to be a friend of those workers when they are voting to make casualisation easier.

JOURNALIST: You guys have come up here, from Brisbane and from where you're from, I mean, is this a pre-election sort of blitz to make these promises to workers before we go to the polls, maybe end of this year or maybe next year?

BURKE: This is Labor putting forward its policies, there's no doubt about that. It's Labor putting forward policies that the local workforce has asked for for a long time. In terms of why you're going to see more of us rather suddenly, there's been a fair bit of time from Sydney when I haven't been able to come to Queensland, and good health reasons why I haven't been able to. Now that I can be here, I'm here as often as I can.

JOURNALIST: So there's been some announcements lately in Central Queensland of some potential new renewable energy projects, will Labor be looking on supporting those or getting behind those if they come into power on the federal level?

WATT: Look, what Labor's about in Central Queensland is more jobs, in more industries in Central Queensland. We've just been out in Moranbah, one of the biggest coal mining towns in this country, speaking with mine workers and showing very clearly that we support the work that they do. But we also want to see these new jobs come out of some of the emerging industries like renewables. And I think that's one of the most exciting things for Central Queensland, is that we'll continue exporting coal from Central Queensland for a long time to come because that's needed to make steel right around the world. But we shouldn't be saying no to the new opportunities that we have in some of these newer industries as well. Places like Gladstone, Rocky, Mackay, Townsville, they're doing really cutting edge work around hydrogen, around renewables and also by bringing down the cost of energy in manufacturing, by using more renewable power. So there's incredible opportunities here for Central Queensland if we're just prepared to take them on board. And that's one really clear difference between Labor and Scott Morrison's Government, we want to back Central Queensland in all of these jobs. We're not going to turn our back on jobs in traditional industries. And we're also not going to turn our back on jobs in some of these new industries.

JOURNALIST: What role does Central Queensland play in Labor's emissions targets?

WATT: Labor has already put forward our policy, which is that we want to get to net zero emissions by 2050. And again, for all of the scare campaigns that you hear from the LNP, that actually offers incredible opportunities for jobs right here in Central Queensland. It won't have an impact on the exporting of coal that we do already out of Central Queensland. But what it means is that we can grab these new jobs in hydrogen, in renewables, in manufacturing as well. I mean, I don't know why we keep, as a country, exporting raw materials and minerals overseas so that they can make wind turbines or solar panels and then we import them to bring them back here. I want Central Queenslanders building those kinds of things and creating jobs from that kind of thing. So I think Central Queensland has nothing to fear from reducing emissions and in fact, the evidence is becoming clearer and clearer that reducing our emissions is going to be good for jobs, it's going to be good for the environment, and it's going to be good for power prices as well.

JOURNALIST: What are your thoughts on Joe Biden today saying that, you know, countries that have new coal mines will have questions to answer to the U.S., what does that mean for coal mining jobs here in Central Queensland?

WATT: Look we've been on the road between Moranbah and Rocky, mostly out of mobile range - which is another the thing that Scott Morrison should fix by the way! So I'm not up to date with today's announcements by President Biden, but clearly we are seeing the world as a whole move more and more towards renewable energy. And we want to make sure that Australians and Central Queenslanders have the chance for those kind of jobs as well. But look, there's just recently been new coal mines opened in Queensland under the Palaszczuk Labor Government. And really the future of the coal industry is in the hands of our customers. As long as there are people in Japan, in Korea and other countries who want to import Australian coal, then we'll be supplying it to them. And in some cases that's going to be about continuing existing mines, in some cases that's going to be about opening new ones.

JOURNALIST: And just to confirm, with federal Labor's policy on new coal mines, are you in favour of new coal mines or not?

WATT: Well, of course, we're in favour of new mines as long as they meet environmental safeguards. You know, whether it be a coal mine, a manufacturing plant like this or any other kind of business, they've obviously got to go through environmental processes. But we're not the Greens. We're not saying no new coal mines. We're not saying close down coal mines. We're not saying close down coal-fired power stations. We will continue exporting that coal while there's a market, but of course, all projects have got to comply with environmental laws.

JOURNALIST: What would you say to anyone who might argue that there's a contradiction between achieving a net zero target and opening new coal mines?

WATT: Look, I just don't think that's correct. I don't think there is a contradiction because the point about net zero emissions is that it's got to be your net emissions, overall. You'll be increasing them in some ways, you'll be decreasing them in other ways. And what you want to make sure of is that they cancel each other out and you end up at zero. So Labor doesn't see any contradiction in continuing our support for the coal mining industry, especially the export of that, while at the same time making sure that we grab the new jobs that are available in hydrogen, in renewables and advanced manufacturing.

That's really the key difference between Labor and our political opponents. You've got the Greens on the one hand saying 'we don't want to know anything about traditional industries in Central Queensland, we only want to talk about the new stuff'. We've got the National Party and the LNP saying 'we can only do the things we've always done and we're not interested in these new jobs'. What Labor's about is more jobs, in more industries.

JOURNALIST: Yes, Anthony Albanese has made an announcement about mining jobs and changes this morning. Could you run us through that again?

WATT: Again we've been on the road today, so I'm not I'm not aware of that specific announcement, what I am aware of is that Anthony Albanese is addressing a summit today around clean energy jobs. And that, again, is to highlight the incredible opportunities that exist both here in Central Queensland and right around the country if we actually have a federal government that are prepared to back renewable energy, that's prepared to back hydrogen. You know, we've had all these scare campaigns going on, particularly in places like Central Queensland, over the years, trying to convince people that leaning towards renewable and cleaner energy is going to cost everyone's jobs. It's total nonsense.

You know, we've just driven from Moranbah to Rockhampton and you think about the area between there - the opportunities for all sorts of different power options. Central Queensland is sitting on a goldmine of solar resources, of wind resources, and if we can only harness them, they could be supplying the energy to manufacturing plants like this. I reckon if you spoke to the owners of this business, they'd be pretty keen to reduce their energy bill. And if they could do that, they could employ even more people. That's what makes us become more competitive as a country. So we're right behind those new jobs, as well as supporting the jobs that we have in our traditional industries like mining and agriculture.

JOURNALIST: You talk about new jobs, just to confirm, with manufacturing obviously. How is bringing more manufacturing jobs to Australia going to make more new jobs? I mean, manufacturing, some people think that's an older industry, that's something that's in the past. How is it a new job?

WATT: Yeah, look I think that's been one of the real tragedies we've seen under the current LNP Government in Canberra is that they've continued to let our manufacturing industry die. There's no better example than the car industry. We've got great local examples here in Central Queensland of people who are prepared to get in and have a go and build up a manufacturing business. And what we need is a federal government that's actually prepared to back them. And instead, what we had in Canberra was a government that literally dared the car industry to leave the country. And you know what? They did. And that cost a whole lot of jobs, mostly in other states, but even in states like Queensland as well. And that's why Anthony Albanese just recently made a big announcement that if we're elected, we will create a $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund, which is all about rebuilding manufacturing in Australia.

We want to see more manufacturing jobs here in Central Queensland, and right around the country. I mean, I think what we all learned out of COVID was the fact that we had let our manufacturing industry slip away, means that we were caught short, we weren't self-sufficient. All of a sudden we needed to import protective equipment that we couldn't buy. That's been a real wake up call to people that we need to get our manufacturing industry back up and running, because it's good for jobs. It's good for local economies, and it means we'll be able to supply our own needs.

JOURNALIST: And my last question to you is we saw Anthony Albanese here last week as well, announcing obviously the new member for Flynn candidate. I mean, is there more of a concerted effort from ALP to target Central Queensland seats in this upcoming federal election that's due in the next year?

WATT: Without doubt. I mean, I don't think it's any secret to say that Labor got an absolute towelling here in Central Queensland at the last federal election. I spent a lot of time here myself, and I remember it very well. And we were really disappointed about that because obviously Central Queensland has traditionally been strong Labor territory. There's good working-class towns like Gladstone and Rocky who walked away from Labor. And we're determined to demonstrate to people that we're on their side, that we've heard the messages from the last federal election.

We're going to be putting up great candidates in Central Queensland with policies that we think will actually create more jobs and guarantee the future here in Central Queensland. And that's what we're here doing today.

JOURNALIST: Do we know when an announcement for a member of a Labor candidate for Capricornia will be?

WATT: Look, we're still going through those kind of processes internally, but I expect in the pretty near future we'll have more to say about candidates in a seat like Capricornia and other regional seats. So far, we've announced three candidates including, as you say, our candidate for Flynn, a spectacular candidate, Mayor Matt Burnett, really well regarded across the region. And we'll have similarly high quality candidates for seats like Capricornia and Dawson in the not-too-distant future.

ENDS