TRANSCRIPT: TV INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS - APRIL 15, 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS
THURSDAY, 15 APRIL 2021

SUBJECTS: Vaccine rollout; Menulog; gig workers; industrial relations.

LAURA JAYES, HOST: Let's go live now to the Shadow Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke. Tony Burke, good to see you. Australia is being asked to get this vaccine. But it's not quite clear what political leaders – and I'm talking about the prime minister and premiers – will deliver in return. Are you clear on that?

TONY BURKE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: Well, as we've been saying the whole way, a good economic outcome is only delivered if you have a good health outcome. If you get the health outcome right, then the economic outcome’s going to follow from that. And one of the problems right at the start of all of this was Mr Morrison was wanting to sort of set it up as though it was a choice between the two. It's not. You get the health work right. And right now, one of the most important aspects of getting the health work right is to get that vaccination program delivered. The economic benefits flow from that.

JAYES: We're not getting those answers from the Prime Minister but nor the premiers either. Tony Burke, if for example everyone in 1A gets vaccinated, everyone in 1B, what freedoms should that bring? Should it mean a commitment from the premiers that there'll be no more lockdowns and no more internal border closures?

BURKE: They're always going to have to follow the medical advice and you can't depart from that. But the medical advice right now – the most important thing that it's saying is for the vaccination program to be rolled out. And this is where for the government it's a complete shemozzle. We've often talked about the difference between what Mr Morrison announces and what he ends up delivering. But often he's tried to get around that by spin or marketing or advertising or whatever he's done. But on this one, this is not an ideological issue, this is just a competence issue. Everyone agrees that the rollout has to occur. The first deadline was 4 million doses by the end of March. We clearly got nowhere near that, we’re around the 1 million mark. You have a direct health outcome that will affect the medical advice the premiers will then rely on. So I don't think we can approach it as a political negotiation. It has to be based on the medical advice. And we know, without any doubt, the medical advice is going to be informed by whether or not the Morrison government has delivered on the vaccination program. And at the moment, they haven't. We are something like 100th in the world in terms of rankings. We are way behind. Aged care, it's something in the order of only 20 per cent are fully vaccinated, the disability sector …

JAYES: 29 per cent.

BURKE: I beg your pardon?

JAYES: It’s 29 per cent in the aged care and disability sector as of two days ago. So look, Tony Burke, we're not, I guess in the lead up to an election, will we hear from Labor what approach you might take here? Because while you say it is based on the medical advice, there is an economic element to this that the medical officers and the medical experts, the CMO, does not take into account. So where is the line? I mean, Greg Hunt said two days ago that even with a full vaccination program completed here in Australia, that might not mean international borders open up. Why not?

BURKE: Yeah, I I'd like to hear more from the Health Minister explaining that particular one. Because certainly, if you look at what ACCI have said, if you look at what the different business organisations have said, they view the successful rollout of the vaccination program as incredibly important to what will happen with the economy, what will happen with business confidence, and where they believe the health advice will come in terms of having any advice based on the vaccination program having been rolled out. So business has a very clear view on the importance to the economy of getting the vaccination program rolled out. I'm not completely clear on what Mr Hunt was driving at there.

JAYES: Okay. Well, we'll follow that up. I promise you we'll have a look at that and what it all means for the months, indeed, perhaps even years ahead. Now, let me ask you about Menulog. It’s delivering a pilot program in Australia but it’s far from any kind of done deal. What do you think of that announcement?

BURKE: Look, what's starting to happen now is the platforms, and Menulog’s lead the way on this and good on them, are recognising that we cannot go on with a situation of people being paid below minimum standards in Australia. It just can't continue. We're not that sort of country. We don't do it in other sections of the workforce. And there's been outrage in all the wage theft scandals about people being paid less than the legal rate of pay. And yet for some of those platforms it's been happening as a matter of course. What Menulog is trialling is an employment model. What we've recommended, our policy that we're taking to the election, would be to give the Commission the capacity to look at these employee-like situations and be able to work out what those minimum standards are. But either way right now, Menulog’s ahead of the pack. I've re-downloaded the app the other day, it had fallen off the phone, so I put it back on. Some terrible fast food was ordered by the kids. But, you know I hope that people get behind and support a company that's starting to turn the corner. I suspect they won't be the last of the these apps to do that.

JAYES: Could you have jumped the gun here perhaps because Menulog’s just a small fraction of the food delivery market? Uber is about 70 per cent, a little bit more than 70 per cent of the food delivery market. It had a report - yes, commissioned by Uber but done by Alpha Beta - that showed that on average it was giving people more than the minimum wage.

BURKE: Really interesting how that ended up being reported. I saw the report in The Australian on that making the claim that you've just made. But of course $21-something figure that that report came out with, with the minimum wage being $19.84. So as an hourly rate, was it above the minimum wage? Well, sort of, because the minimum wage presumes that on top of that you get paid your superannuation – none of that gets paid. The minimum wage presumes you get four weeks annual - none of that happens. The minimum wage presumes that if you're rostered on a day that turns out to be a public holiday - you still get paid.

JAYES: Is that the price of flexibility?

BURKE: Flexibility is about there being a loading on top of an hourly rate, or about there being ways things can be adjusted. It’s not about paying someone less than is legally allowed in Australia.

JAYES: Fair enough but these are contractors. But do you acknowledge that many people turned to Uber during the pandemic that did not have a way to earn income anytime else? How do you factor that in?

BURKE: Oh, I've never objected to the technology and Labor object to the technology. I use the technology. And people want the convenience of that. But we shouldn't have a situation in Australia where people are being paid less than is legally allowed. No one becomes a contractor for the purposes of earning less. No one becomes a contractor so they can be paid less than what they would be paid as an employee. We have a really unusual situation in the economy with these apps. Because we're talking about people at the lower end of the income spectrum it's not massive money to bring them up to minimum standards. But at the moment, even the Uber report that was broadcast as though they were paying above the minimum rate - once you look at all the conditions that weren't attached to it, you realise their own report proved that if these people had been cast as employees it would have been a wage theft story. And I'm yet to meet somebody who becomes a contractor for the purposes of earning less.

JAYES: Yep, well, we'll keep on looking at that because Menulog is certainly a pilot that we want to see the results on. Tony Burke we’ll have to leave it there but we will speak soon. Thanks.

ENDS