TRANSCRIPT - TV INTERVIEW - SKY NEWS - WEDNESDAY, 18 MAY 2022

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
SKY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, 18 MAY 2022

SUBJECTS: Labor welcomes the Fair Work Commission’s 10 days paid domestic and family violence leave; Scott Morrison’s desperate distractions from cost of living crisis; Labor’s plan to support secure jobs; Coalition rorts and waste; Liberals deliberately keeping wages low; ABS unemployment figures.

TONY BURKE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: A moment ago, Scott Morrison in the media conference claimed that he didn't have a magic wand when it came to getting wages to increase. He certainly pulled every lever he could to keep wages low. This government had low wages as a deliberate design feature of their economic management, and it's exactly what they've achieved. The data that will come out today on wages will be for the same period as the 5.1 headline inflation figure. There's discussion back and forth as to what exactly today's number will be. But the discussion is all about one thing. How far backwards are Australian households going? Under every scenario that we're looking at today, we still end up with Australian households going backwards. A situation where everything is going up, except people's wages, a situation where Australians, when they look at the cost of living, every household finds every week harder than what came previously. And that's in the exact situation, as I described, where this is not something that's happened by accident, this government wanted to keep wages low and that's exactly what they've done. Before I go to questions. I just also want to quickly refer to the decision from the Fair Work Commission with respect to family and domestic violence leave. Obviously, Labor welcomes the decision. I moved in Parliament amendments that would have made this more, not just for the more than 2 million people on awards, but across the Australian workforce. Family and domestic violence leave is obviously not limited to people on awards. When I moved that amendment, every member of the Liberal and National Party came into the House of Representatives and voted against that becoming law. I'm hoping that we're in a situation after Saturday, where a Labor Government, an Albanese Labor Government is able to introduce that legislation again, and finally have that 10 days family and domestic violence leave made available, regardless of whether or not you're on an award.

JOURNALIST: Mr. Burke, do you foresee any situation in the next term where inflation is lower than wages?

BURKE: I think you get into a game there. The first thing is, if we don't win the election, then I absolutely see that situation as locked in no matter what happens with inflation. The headline inflation or underlying inflation, because the government wants to keep wages low. What we will do, and we've explained exactly how we'll do this is at every turn, where we're able to help with putting upward pressure on wages, we'll take the opportunity to try to make sure that people don't keep going backwards. That's been our benchmark. And it shouldn't be remarkable that the Labor Party doesn't want people to go backwards. The thing that's remarkable is that the Liberal Government does.

JOURNALIST: Mr. Burke, you said last week that anything less than 5.1% is a pay cut. Given that should you form government will you advocate strongly in Labor's submission for a wage rise above that?

BURKE: What we've made clear is the position that we would welcome would be one where people didn't go backwards. In particular, we focused on the people on the minimum wage and the awards closest to the minimum wage. Let's not forget what we're talking about there amounts to $1 an hour. We are not talking about an extraordinary amount of money and the hysteria from Scott Morrison on this, claiming in one breath that the economy's strong, and in the next it is actually so vulnerable that if the lowest paid workers in Australia get an extra dollar an hour that the sky will fall in. Labor's view is to get wages moving isn't just good in terms of resolving and helping to calm the cost of living crisis, it's also important for people within the economy. These are the people within the economy who will then spend that money. They're in a situation now where they'll be spending it on absolute basics. But any alternative to that should be unthinkable. As I say the thing that I still find extraordinary, is that where we've spoken about the most modest of pay rises, which is simply just to keep up with what's happening in inflation for the people on the lowest rates of pay, Scott Morrison has the hysterical response, which clearly shows he doesn't want people, even those on the lowest wages to be able to keep up. He was willing to make nice speeches about the heroes of the pandemic, he's willing to waste extraordinary amounts of government money, he's not willing to push for them to get an extra dollar an hour.

JOURNALIST: One way to raise wages is to increase public service wages. Will you do that in government and what do you make of the Coalition saying that they're going to find savings in public service.

BURKE: First of all, I've got the deepest respect for the professionalism in the Australian Public Service. They've had extraordinary pressure put on them by this government. We have said that we'll be a model employer. Katy Gallagher, I've seen in the papers today has spoken specifically against the cut that was announced by the government yesterday. But importantly, we have made a commitment and Anthony made it last year, both in terms of procurement that we would use the spending power of government to promote secure jobs, and in terms of our own relationships, should we win government, with the members of the public service. We believe you have to have a commitment to be a model employer. That's a commitment that we have. It's not one shared by our opponents.

JOURNALIST: Mr. Burke, isn't this more a question about rising inflation, though, rather than wages. Inflation is running at 6% this year, forecast, surely a new government should tackle that number, if there is to be any sort of wage increase?

BURKE: I've got to say, I heard these comments from Scott Morrison a moment ago, that it's only about inflation. Let's not forget, when inflation was low, he was saying we had to keep wages low because inflation was low. Now inflation is high and he's saying we need to keep wages low because inflation is high. No matter what economic statistic comes out, Scott Morrison's answer will be the same - low wages. They promised it, it was a design feature. There's a whole lot of commitments that this government makes, and Scott Morrison makes that they never deliver on. Low wages they've delivered on in spades and Australians are feeling that pain every hour of every day.

JOURNALIST: But it wasn't just the Prime Minister saying that it's about inflation. Economists have also said the issue is inflation. They said when Labor supported the 5.1 last week, that that would be a spiral effect upwards. A number of economists are saying the issue is inflation.

BURKE: You can pick and choose which economists you point to with respect to the 5.1 figure. But I've got to say I find it extraordinary that anyone would seriously argue that the people on the minimum wage, the people on the lowest of the awards, that a 5.1 increase for them would cause the economic sky to fall in. Like really, you can give $20 billion to companies that don't technically qualify for JobKeeper and that's okay? You can waste five and a half billion dollars on submarine contracts that produce no submarines and that's meant to be okay? You can spend a billion dollars of public money on the Prime Minister advertising himself and that's okay? But where you've got to draw the line is on minimum wage earners as to whether they can get an extra dollar an hour just to be able to keep up with what's happening with inflation, I think it's an extraordinarily selective argument. And it's not something that we support at all.

JOURNALIST: Do you agree that the 5.1% is what the minimum wage should be? Or would you like to see this higher?

BURKE: We've made clear that we will put in a submission if there's a change of government, and I'm sure we've already been heard even in advance of the submission, that our view is that people should not be going backwards. In particular, the people who find it hardest to make ends meet. You got to remember the reason I keep pointing back to the people on the minimum wage and on the lowest of those awards, is because they are the people least likely to have available savings to draw down on. They are the people who are the ones in our country most likely to be living week to week, they are the front line of the cost of living crisis. For the last two years, they've been the frontline of keeping the Australian economy going. They're the heroes of the pandemic, we have all relied on them. Now they're relying on people to be arguing that they at least keep pace with what's happening to their cost of living. And Labor's made clear that we're on their side with that.

JOURNALIST: If I can take you to casual conversion. That was the only reform in the government's gutted IR omnibus bill last year that actually made it through. Last week we saw before the Fair Work Commission that it was basically successfully challenged and defeated, because the employer found it too difficult to convert this casual worker to permanency. If Labor is elected, will they make it more difficult for employers to deny workers that right for more secure work?

BURKE: We always said when those provisions came forward and that you could drive a truck through them, and the truck just went straight through. The government was never serious about wanting to be able to deliver secure employment. They think insecure employment is fantastic. They just call it flexibility. And they don't seem to understand that your wages aren't casual, your rents not casual. If you've got a mortgage, your mortgage isn't casual. Every financial commitment that comes through every day and every week isn't casual. If you're in a situation where you're working for simply additional money, if you're in a situation where you're otherwise secure. There’s lots of people casual work is what they want, and there will still continue to be casual work around. But this government has never understood the importance and the dignity that comes when someone wants to secure a job, of being able to have the security that comes with that. It doesn't just mean you get security in your household income. It also means you get security in your life. Now, the whole casual conversion debate was effectively the government trying to say, hey look they didn't need to deal with same job, same pay. They had another way of dealing with it and it was casual conversion. That's where this argument largely came from with respect to the government backbenchers when they were first talking about casual conversion. They were never serious about delivering secure work. They wanted to virtue signal claiming that they'd done something, the case shows they've done nothing. Our Secure Jobs Plan is the pathway announced last year, that creates the opportunities where we deal with some of the rorts that have been undercutting job security, and undercutting wages in Australia, and also make sure that people who want a secure job have a pathway to find one again.

JOURNALIST: You're advocating for wages to keep pace with inflation, why don't you publicly advocate for welfare payments to keep pace with inflation?

BURKE: The issue of welfare payments is something that we've said we'll look at every budget, and every budget that needs to be reviewed.

JOURNALIST: Why are you waiting until after the election to put in a submission to the Fair Work Commission? Why haven't you done that already?

BURKE: The Productivity Commission did a review of wages a while ago and they made clear that there were three sorts of submissions that effectively determined where the Fair Work Commission landed. The Productivity Commission referred to the submissions that had come from the employer bodies, the submissions that come from the ACTU and a submission that comes from the government. A whole lot of others put in submissions, and from time to time opposition's have. But my view was once that Productivity Commission report came down, it was really clear that the submission that would make a difference as to what happened with people's wages, was the view of the Government of Australia. We have a government now, that deliberately wants to keep wages low, and a whole lot gets made of ‘but they haven't specified a number'. Have a look at the government's submission, in particular, have a look at heading 7.1, the importance of low paid jobs. This government has gone to the Fair Work Commission as part of the annual wage review, arguing for wages to be low. That's the economic case that the government has made in their submission. You'd find from a Labor Government a submission that is about people being able to keep up.

JOURNALIST: What are we expecting to see in the ABS's data on unemployment?

BURKE: That's like a question on the polls predicting the outcome I’ve got to say. You'll be unsurprised the answer is pretty similar, which is simply to say, I don't know what the number will be. But if you look at all the commentary, it all has the same thing in common, which is this. People are going backwards. Today we find out how fast they're going backwards. Thanks.

ENDS