TRANSCRIPT: DOORSTOP INTERVIEW - CANBERRA - MARCH 18, 2021

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
SYDNEY
THURSDAY, 18 MARCH, 2021

SUBJECTS: Industrial relations; consent app.

JOURNALIST: The IR reforms Mr Burke – it looks like they could be done and dusted for the Government?

TONY BURKE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: At the moment this is in a shambles for the Government. The basic competence that’s required the Government doesn’t seem to be able to deliver. The problem the industrial relations bill is facing simply is the Government ignored its own process. They had business and unions sit down at the table - and then they ignored the process and just did what they wanted to do. We had a really simple test for this bill: it had to deliver decent wages with job security. What we've received is something that makes job security harder and makes it harder for people to negotiate paying increases.

JOURNALIST: Have you received an assurance from Stirling Griff that he won’t back the Government's IR reforms, either as it stands or through amendments?

BURKE: Look, I'll let the crossbench speak for themselves. I think that's the most respectful way. I've always dealt with the crossbench that way. What I will say, though, is the Government has been operating on a political timetable rather than a reasonable one. The Senate inquiry – people only received the report at the beginning of the week, people have been asking for more time. The Government has a political timetable that they want to bulldoze this through this week. There is a lot of detail there. But a lot of it hurts working people. And that's where they've run into problems.

JOURNALIST: So if it doesn't get up this week what's the future for it?

BURKE: Well, our position has always been it's bad legislation and the best thing is for it to be defeated. So our position has been very simple here, we’ll be voting against it when the second reading vote happens, whenever that is. And the best thing the Government could do would be to withdraw it and come back with something that delivers job security and better pay.

JOURNALIST: What are those things that in your view would deliver job security and better pay?

BURKE: Anthony Albanese made an announcement quite a few weeks ago now of a series of measures for job security, in terms of making sure that gig workers don't receive less than the minimum wage, in terms of making sure that labour hire companies can't undercut what workers are being paid, making sure that job security becomes an objective of the system instead of something that just gets cast aside. This can be done, it could be drafted right now. But instead the Government went back to the old ideological wish list. And if they hadn't done that, this would be sailing through the parliament. They set up a process that was meant to be cooperative and then they ignored it.

JOURNALIST: Just on another issue, the New South Wales top cop has suggested a consent app to help deal with rising cases of sexual assault. What do you think of such an app?

BURKE: I heard a little bit of the conversation on this on radio this morning. I don't know the detail. The one thing I will say is if every person in authority is having serious conversations now about consent then that's a conversation Australia has needed to have for a very long time. If the New South Wales Police are thinking about that, and trying to work their way through that, then I'm glad that conversation’s happening. But in terms of where the app itself has landed, I don't have that level of detail.

JOURNALIST: But given the success - and I say that loosely - of the COVID Safe app, what hope do you have of the Government being able to develop an app that would protect women?

BURKE: I don't think we can pretend that there's a technological solution that fixes what we're talking about here. We need a change in attitudes, we need a change in culture. That's not only in this building, it’s throughout the community as well. But anyone who is trying, whether they're using apps, whether they’re using technology, whether they’re using conversations, laws or rules of the workplace - anyone who's trying to advance improvements in the way people are treated in this country is at least working with the right intentions.

JOURNALIST: Tony, just back on the IR reforms. You know a thing or two about striking a chord. Has the Government struck the wrong note with this one?

BURKE: The Government has hit the wrong note completely here. All they had to do was deliver secure jobs with decent pay. It's not a complicated test, but they failed it.

ENDS