TRANSCRIPT: RADIO INTERVIEW - 4RFM MORANBAH - APRIL 19, 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

 

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
4RFM RADIO MORANBAH
MONDAY, 19 APRIL 2021

SUBJECTS: “Same Job, Same Pay”; Australian manufacturing.

HOST: Good afternoon Moranbah and surrounds, we are just jumping into the kids show this afternoon which has been very interesting. It's been a bit of a wild ride between country and new music, but the kids get to play what they want, because that's what happens at a community radio station.

I do have a couple of special guests with me in the studio this afternoon.

There is a bit of a fact-finding mission happening up here in our coal fields at the moment, and I'm very lucky to have Murray Watt and Tony Burke in here with me, who is the Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, which is, that's like a trigger word for everybody out here. It's something that's very close to everybody's hearts, and something that is very big in the news and in lots of stuff around all our mining industry at the moment. So, we would just like to let you guys know that they're up here and to let them tell you what they exactly they are doing up here. Good afternoon, Tony.

TONY BURKE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: G’day. Great to be here. Thanks for having me in.

HOST: A massive intro for you. Okay, so I'm not going to confuse anyone, so I will let you tell our listeners at Moranbah and surrounds, what are you doing up here in Moranbah?

BURKE: Okay, well, Murray Watt and others have been telling me for a while about - and the union's been telling me about - a problem in the mining industry, where you get a rate of pay, and it's negotiated with the employer, and then either labour hire comes in, or outsourcing happens, and you end up having someone come in doing the exact same job, on the exact same shift, and being paid less, and having none of the entitlements that had been negotiated.

Now, I don't see how you can look at that and see it as anything other than a rort, but it's legal. So we've adopted a policy now, and it's one of the things I want to talk to people about, where we call it, “Same Job, Same Pay”, but effectively what it means is, once you've negotiated a rate of pay, you can't have a situation where the employer just says oh well all these other people, they're employed by someone else, but they're now going to do the same job as you, but for less.

And you know, I've heard different arguments be put at different times, say but someone's getting a casual loading, and then you look at this stuff, and the casual for the labour hire firm, even with their loading is earning less every hour than the permanent worker. And yet the whole concept of negotiating an agreement is that it’s meant to be agreed - this is not a complicated part of an agreement. And once it's agreed they should be the rates of pay on the site. You shouldn't be able to go lower, if they want to pay more, great, you know, we'll go with that. But you shouldn't be able to undercut a site rate once an agreement’s put in place. So that's the biggest part of it.

There's also been some changes that went through in the parliament last, two months ago now it might be, it was called the Omnibus Bill, but effectively what happened was, the LNP got together with One Nation, and they took a whole lot of rights away from workers and they were rights that where court cases are going on right now. Now, we don't know where those court cases were going to end up. But effectively, what it meant was that if you were working, you know, a permanent roster, that you were being called a casual, but you were in fact a permanent that the employer can't double dip, the employer can't say, oh, well, I'll take all the benefits of a permanent workforce, but at the same time I'm not going to give you any job security, I'm not going to give you any leave entitlements. If you want a permanent workforce, part of the deal is people get entitlements. That's part of being permanent and has been that way for generations in this country. But more recently, we've seen a rorting of the rules around casuals, where there's nothing casual about it, it's a permanent roster, permanent work.

Now what happened in the parliament was all these workers, that we don't know where it was going to finally land, but it had looked from earlier cases like there were a significant number of workers who were owed money, and particularly in the mining industry. And what happened in the parliament was the LNP and One Nation voted together, basically to say none of that money is owed and that now all sits with the employer again.

Now, I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. I can't remember a situation where there was a clear vote, where the purpose of it was to take money away from a group of workers and just hand it back to the employer. And a whole lot of people don't know it's happened. But I'll tell you, when some of these court cases land differently to what was otherwise going to happen, people will realize that there was a vote in the parliament that meant there was money they would have been entitled to and now they won't get it.

HOST: Yeah, and that, like you said for that to just happen under people's noses is pretty horrendous. And when you were just mentioning, you know the undercutting of pay when you know growing up, there was you know, I grew up in Tieri there was a full mining town full of a permanent workforce. Everybody was permanent, it was very rare that contractors would come in, and you know, nowadays, there's far less permanent workers than there is labour hire and whatnot. It's a very strange shift.

BURKE: Yeah. And you look at that shift, you think well hang on what's actually changed in someone's lives? Our bills haven't become less permanent, the rent or the mortgage hasn't become less permanent, the money that you need to be able to survive is just as permanent as it's always been. But the ability to be guaranteed it has become harder. And I think this is one of the things that became really clear during the pandemic around Australia, where suddenly we realised, roughly a third of the workers in Australia don't have any leave entitlements.

Now, there will always be some people who want to be casual, and I get that, particularly if it's a job that you're taking for a bit extra money, that you're not relying on, there’ll be a whole lot of people, particularly students, but not only, where casual is the way they want to work. But for most people, you want security, and to have security means your job should be secure, and the pay attached to your job should be secure.

HOST: And if you're working the same job, but the bloke beside you, you should both be on the same.

BURKE: That's right. That's right. None of this is complicated. But at the same time, it stuns me that we've now had eight long years, where every time an employer came up with a new game, a new way of trying to get around the system, there was no response. You know, in tax law if an employer comes up with a new loophole to try to take money away from the government, we get legislation brought into the parliament pretty quickly to make sure that they're still getting their revenue. But when an employer comes up with a new game to play to avoid workers being paid what they're meant to, we've had eight years where there's been no correction. And not only that, when it looked like the employees might be going to have a win, as some of the casuals getting leaving entitlements were having, that's where the government has stepped in and said no, no, we'd better get together with Pauline Hanson and stop this one, and the legislation goes through. And you know, it happened very suddenly, because a whole lot of other stuff was knocked over, it didn't get the attention that should have but I'll tell you, that vote, that removal of pay for a whole lot of workers from that vote between the LNP and One Nation was squarely aimed at the mining industry. It was aimed directly at mining workers.

HOST: Yep. And that's what brings you up here to our coalfields, I guess. And so like I said, this is a fact finding mission for you guys. So you are going to be spending time in our area talking to people on the ground, you're talking to the workers, you're talking to people who are affected by this permanents/casuals, you’re talking to everybody in getting the all information you can take with you back down to Parliament?

BURKE: Yeah. And the different meeting sometimes people try to get things into a format of everything has to be question-answer. I've never worked that way. It sort of presumes I will have the answer to everything, and I know you end up with some people who just want to tell you something, and they're trying to frame it as a question. But they actually don't want to ask, they just want to make sure that you know something. And so I'm absolutely on for that. I want to hear what is happening to undermine people's pay. What's happening so that some workers aren't getting the same dignity as the people they're working side by side with. Because I believe we've got policies that will fix this, but I want to make sure of it, I want to make absolutely make sure of it. Anthony Albanese made his big announcement of these policies, they were all about job security, he made sure he made the announcement in Queensland, and not to an audience of media or anything like that, but to an audience of workers. We are completely committed to wanting to get this right. And it's for two reasons. One, it's just not fair. Like it is simply not fair. You do the same work and you get paid less. You do the same work, one person gets leave the other person doesn't. You’re working side by side, same shift, same job. It's just not fair. But the other thing is, if we want to get Australia moving again on the other side of the pandemic, people need to have the confidence to spend money. We're not going to be having the overseas tourists in the numbers that we used to. We need locals to have the confidence to spend money. And if you're constantly worried about your pay being undercut, if you're constantly worried about whether or not your job’s secure, you won't have the confidence to spend. We need people to spend, so it's better for them to have the security and it's better for the economy of the whole country.

HOST: Yep, absolutely. And tonight you are going down to the Workers’ Club this evening. Six o'clock guys, a bit after we finish this interview anyway and they'll be down there at the Workers, and so you can have a bit of a one-on-one chat. But that's the thing, I guess that that we always want here, we get a few people call in every now, not as many as should, from parliament, they do come up and have chats with us every now and then. But people want to know that they have been heard, they really need to know that you are listening and that you are actually doing something productive with the stories people are telling you and with the information people are telling you. So you're gonna guarantee that for me?

BURKE: Oh, yeah, I wouldn't be here for any other reason. And anyone who's worked with me over the last 10-15 years, knows the consultation is always real. And the different ways that ideas get modified and clarified to make sure we get it absolutely right, is something, it's the way I've operated my whole time. It's the way Anthony Albanese operates, Murray Watt, it's the same. You know, what we want to do is fix a very real problem. And you've got some great jobs here and you've got some people doing the same work, and not getting the same respect. That's what I want to make sure we fix. And, you know, I know some of the ways that's happening. I know what's happening with labour hire where you just get somebody employed by a different entity. So all of a sudden the negotiated site rate becomes meaningless. I know that's not fair. I want to fix that. I know it's wrong, that when you get somebody working a permanent roster, you know some people get their roster 12 months in advance, for the whole year, and yet they get told they're a casual. Now, that's not the way it works, not the way it's meant to work. But at the moment unless we change the law, that's exactly what's happening. And you know, I would have thought on a policy like that, you would have seen the priority of the Parliament should be to fix the rort, not to do what the Libs and One Nation did which was to legitimise it, and to lock it in.

HOST: And so this evening, like I said, you are going down to the Workers Club, but you are also going out, you're going to go on site, you're going to talk to the fellows out at Broadies tomorrow morning as well?

BURKE: That's right. Sometimes you meet some of the same people on moments like this. But every conversation’s different, and you always come out having learned a hell of a lot. I think not just the most offensive thing, but also the dumbest thing you can do, when you come in here if you're a member of parliament, is coming for the purposes of telling people what you think they need to hear, it’s a waste of their time, it’s a waste of yours, and you'll go away and make the same mistakes you were going to. And the other thing is, I'm a relatively robust character, I've been in meetings with some pretty fierce character assessments. And I keep coming back.

HOST: So, you know, things can get a bit tense out here. You might have some tough questions thrown at you, but like I said, as long as you're willing to take it on all on board. That's all well, that's it.

BURKE: But think about this, if we can fix it, if this policy, if we've if we've nailed it as well as I think we might have already, and as the conversation continues, if Anthony Albanese then wins the next election, we get to implement this. Think of how the area changes, when everybody doing the same job has the same pay. When everybody on a permanent roster has leave entitlements. Think of what that means where you get away from all the unfairness and people getting irritated that they're working just as hard, they're not getting the same level of respect. Think of what that means to an area like this, and to jobs like, and workers, like the ones I'll be talking to, well, who are listening now and who I'll be talking to tonight, and tomorrow, it's not just some legal nicety. That then means where you weren't sure if you could borrow money, you've got confidence, where you weren't sure if you can spend on something that you really wanted, you've got confidence, where you weren't sure what decisions you could make about your kids or other decisions, that confidence in the security changes your life. And I want to make sure we do that.

HOST: Well, you're selling me I can tell you. And now this obviously isn't something that's unique to the mining industry, it is something that happens a lot in the mining industry, but this, you know, rolls over to everything like nursing and manufacturing in particular. So, you guys are heading down to Rocky tomorrow after you've been out to Broad Meadow and you're going to be chatting with some of the manufacturing places down there in Rocky?

BURKE: Yeah, that's right. So, one of the challenges and one of the things that annoys some of the companies where labour hire and rorts are happening is if you're a good company doing the right thing, you're being undercut and so the place we're going to tomorrow I think, and I may be surprised, I'm not expecting the same level of problems there. But what I am expecting is a frustration that some people will have, and that the workers there will have, which is where some of the business then goes to other companies that can be cheaper, because they're not treating their workers the right way. And that's part of the whole story as well. Sometimes it gets presented in the media as though the company that's doing the wrong thing, because it improves their bottom line, that somehow this is good for business. Well, it's not good for the businesses who respect their workforce. It's not good for the businesses who give people security of employment and pay people the same amount for the same job. Because they’ve then got to compete with people who are doing the wrong thing. So there's another side to the whole story and I want to work my way through that with manufacturing as well. Because I really, and Murray would be across this as well as me anyway, but think about getting manufacturing going in Australia, again, what that means for jobs. There's a whole lot of products where all the components come from Australia, but the product itself, we import from overseas, having exported all the components, all the parts of it. And after a year, like we had last year, you don't bounce back exactly the same and you want to build the nation back stronger. That's why Anthony Albanese has announced a $1 billion reconstruction fund. But a big part of that is to make sure that we can get manufacturing moving again.

HOST: And last year was probably a good opportunity for us to look internally and see that we actually are capable of producing a lot of things in this country.

BURKE: That's right. The car industry was basically told to go when Joe Hockey was Treasurer. I remember sitting in the parliament when he made the announcement. He just told them, and they did. And, you know, we had, right back to Ben Chifley, when the first Holden had rolled off now to have seen that industry chased out of the country. Huge mistake. But the car industry is not the whole of manufacturing either. And, you know, that story that we saw with the car industry, we've seen section after section of manufacturing, now is the chance to turn the corner. Because when you come out of a period of high unemployment, when you come out of a period where everything's taken a step back, like we have during the pandemic, that's when you work out what sort of country you want to be. Whether you want to be a country with a secure workforce, whether you want to be a country that makes things, whether you want to be a country where the same workers doing the same thing are treated fairly.

HOST: Yep, absolutely. Everything you’re saying is very relevant and I can't wait to hear what people are going to throw at you this evening and I'm sure that you've got great responses for everything. And it's very true...

BURKE: Well, maybe not. You never walk in too confident.

HOST: That’s very true, I agree. My husband's a mad stickler for Australian foods. So, he's constantly reading the ingredients list and it's very similar to that you can have ingredients that are all Australian, but they've been sent overseas to create this product that then comes back and it's, it just all seems quite insane.

BURKE: It shouldn't be beyond us.

HOST: And that was, it was a great chance, when you’ve seen a lot of Australian companies really step up during the pandemic. You know, it was the 3D modelling guys that were making safety stuff, because we couldn't get it from overseas, and people were making the masks. And you know, we are very capable country, and we were a very industrious country, so I think we're fully capable of doing that again.

BURKE: That’s right.

HOST: Wonderful. So I'm just going run over these times again. So down at the workers club, I've held you up a little bit, but they will be heading over to the workers club this evening, in the main bar?

MURRAY WATT, SHADOW MINISTER FOR NORTHERN AUSTRALIA: Starting out there, and then it's the Isaacs room out the back, isn't it? So we'll head out there after our first drink.

HOST: Wonderful. And that's a chance for you to discuss, you know, ask questions, tell your stories, because it is all valuable, it's all tools that these guys can use to then go and make this industry far fairer and far better off.

But you're also heading out to Broad Meadow in the morning at shift change. And so you'll be chatting with the workers out there then. And then down to Rocky. Yeah, you'll see a bunch of different places in Rocky, I'm assuming?

WATT: Yeah, we're heading out to a food processing company called Keppel Brand to start with. They’re just outside Rocky and then a roundtable in the afternoon with union members and Labor members and anyone who's interested in the IR stuff that Tony has been talking about. I should just mention if people do want to come along, tomorrow morning, we're actually meeting at the park just outside the Broad Meadows mine. It's on the corner of Red Hill Road and Goonyella Access Road. So obviously we'll be mainly talking with workers from the Broady mine. But anyone who's interested in these issues is welcome to come along seven o'clock tomorrow morning.

HOST: Yeah, wonderful and hat's off boys. Like I said, it makes a really big difference. We don't get as many as we should be getting up here, but it does mean a lot when people come up and can actually listen and take those questions and just be honest, that's all we ever asked for out here, so thank you for coming up.

BURKE: Thanks heaps.

HOST: All right, we'll get back into the music now keep an eye out for these guys and we will invite them back next time they’re in the area of course.

ENDS