ANTHONY ALBANESE MP
LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY
MEMBER FOR GRAYNDLER
JIM CHALMERS MP
SHADOW TREASURER
MEMBER FOR RANKIN
TONY BURKE MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
SHADOW MINISTER FOR THE ARTS
MEMBER FOR WATSON
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
DOORSTOP INTERVIEW
TOLL NQX NATIONAL OFFICE, BERRINBA
WEDNESDAY, 20 APRIL 2022
SUBJECTS: Federal election; cost of living; Labor’s plan for aged care; the Solomon Islands; Labor’s support of wages growth; the politicised role of the ABCC; Labor’s immigration policy; Labor’s continuous support for workers.
JIM CHALMERS, SHADOW TREASURER: Okay, welcome to the border of Brisbane and Logan City in southeast Queensland, really pleased to be here with Anthony and Tony, with Rowan Holzberger our candidate in Forde, and also the acting mayor of Logan City, Jon Raven. But most of all, I wanted to thank the workers and managers here at Toll. The workers here literally kept the wheels of the economy turning during some very difficult times. And we're here today to express our gratitude and our appreciation for all of the work that happened out of this Toll work warehouse, and amongst all the drivers and forklift operators and everyone who works here, we're very grateful for everything that they did. Now Rowan and I are pleased to announce today an upgrade to Loganlea Road just south of here. The upgrade to Loganlea road is a $22.5 million commitment from Federal Labor matched by John Raven and the Logan City Council to ease congestion on Loganlea Road between the Logan Motorway and the on-ramp to the Pacific Motorway and this will make a big difference to people living in Waterford and Loganlea and further beyond. People going from the hospital, from the university, from the Meadowbrook shops onto the freeway and back again, we're talking about widening Loganlea Road so that it is three lanes each way. This is one of the busiest roads in our community. And we are pleased to be able to make this commitment. A better future for our local communities relies on, better roads, safer roads, and a government which is on their side. And that's what this announcement is about today. And a better future is all about better paid, more secure work and that's what we're here to talk about today. And I'll throw it over to Anthony for that purpose.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, thanks very much Jim and it's great to be in your electorate, and just on the border of the electorate of Forde. I think Rowan Holzberger is a fantastic candidate. I've known Rowan for a very long period of time, from when he was a young man in Broken Hill. And he's come to Queensland, like so many people, to make Queensland their home. He's raising his family here in this local electorate of Forde. And I think he will make an outstanding member, if he's successful on the 21st of May. Today's been an opportunity to talk to workers, workers who have done their bit to keep this country going during the last difficult two years, workers who've turned up to work, even when their families haven't been able to go to school or to conduct their normal activities. Companies like Toll, and the freight and logistics sector, have kept the economy going during these difficult times and what they deserve is a government that pays them back – a government that doesn't attack their working conditions. But what we have from the Prime Minister now is an announcement that he's going to go back to the legislation that was defeated when it was introduced during the last term. Now the only way that you want to get rid of the better off overall test is if you don't want people to be better off overall, it's pretty simple. And what the Prime Minister wants to do is to suspend that better off overall test. What that would do is mean that all of the extra conditions above people's basic wage. Their leave loading, their holiday leave, all of these things are up for grabs. Their penalty rates that they rely upon. Workers rely upon these additional payments to put food on the table for their families to pay their rent, to pay their mortgages, to pay their school fees for their kids. And the fact that this government doesn't seem to get the message, even though we know that the cost of everything is going up, except for people's wages. This Prime Minister's response is another attack on people's wages. What we know is that real wages decreased by 1.2 per cent over the last year, but that's not good enough for this Prime Minister, in spite of the fact that the dampening down of wages has not only had a dire impact on people struggling to make ends meet for families doing it tough out there.
It's had a devastating impact on our national economy, the Reserve Bank of Australia say so. They're desperate to see wages increase, and yet for this government, they don't have a plan for anything except for cuts in wages. And can I make some comments as well about one of the greatest policy failures that we've seen from this government. This deal between China and the Solomons was foreshadowed last August, the Government was warned. And yet only in recent days, did the Government bother to send a junior person across to the Solomons, no visit from the Foreign Minister, no visit from the Defence Minister. No engagement in a serious way with Prime Minister Sogavare. What we see is a foreign policy failure on our doorstep. The Solomon Islands is less than 2000 kilometres from Cairns and Townsville, the distance between here and Perth is more than that. So, what we see is a massive policy failure.
Because once again, the characteristics of this government is on show – a Prime Minister who goes missing on the big questions. A Prime Minister who's always too little too late, whether it's the bushfires, whether it's ordering enough vaccines, whether it's ordering rapid antigen tests, whether it's responding to the floods, this Prime Minister is complacent. He's always after the photo op, never there for the follow up. Never does the right planning to get ahead of issues. Now, President Biden is sending his lead Pacific negotiator, Kurt Campbell, that's how serious President Biden took this issue. And yet, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister on Insiders recently said it was all under control. Well, it doesn't look as though it's all under control. This is a very serious foreign policy failure. Australia needs to do more than step up with a slogan in the Pacific. It needs to step up with real engagement, deep engagement with our Pacific Island neighbours. Because we know that the Solomons is strategic. We learned that, if we needed a reminder, during the Second World War, of how critical the Solomons was and this is a massive policy failure. I'd ask Tony Burke's going to make some comments as well, about IR.
TONY BURKE MP, SHADOW MINISTER FOR INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS: Thanks, Anthony. The announcement from the Government to bring back the omnibus bill is extraordinary. We have a situation where everything's been going up, except for wages, and the government now says they want to bring back legislation, which had wage cuts written all over it. 111 pages that bill was, and it had wage cuts in black and white. This is legislation that says your ordinary hourly rate, that can stay the same, but every penalty rate, every shift allowance, every loading, every overtime rate up for grabs. Now what does that mean in the real world? It means if you're someone working, say in retail as a night manager, $10,000 a year can be up for grabs as a pay cut. If you're a butcher working on a Thursday to Sunday shift $7,000 a year, if you're a part time disability care worker $14,000 a year. Now, you only say we're going to suspend the better off overall test if you want to allow a situation for people to be worse off. Low wages haven't been an accident. The Government made clear, low wages are a deliberate design feature of their management of the economy at a time when Australians are desperately wanting to see wages get moving again. The Prime Minister has made clear, legislation that is about cutting wages is on the way back if Mr Morrison is returned.
JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, if you are Prime Minister, what would you do in the Solomons? Would you be seeking to unravel this agreement? Would you be seeking to go to Beijing and meet with leadership there? What would your approach be?
ALBANESE: I would be engaging with the leadership of the Solomons, and I would have done it over a period of time. The problem is that those relationships aren't ones that can be done just during when there's a crisis. When Richard Marles was our person in the Pacific, he had deep engagement, indeed, won a civil honour in the Solomons. What's clear is that we've dropped the ball here. What's clear is that when the warning was given in August, the Government didn't act soon enough. August is now more than six months ago, eight months ago, the Government was warned about this.
JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, is there anything your government would do if you are elected in four weeks’ time to reverse what Penny Wong has described as the worst foreign policy failure since the end of the Second World War?
ALBANESE: This is a massive foreign policy failure on the Prime Minister's watch, a massive foreign policy failure. One in which they were warned about, one in which even during the weeks leading up to the Government finally sending Zed Seselja, a junior person, to the Solomons. We were saying, what are you doing to engage here? This isn't something that has just arisen. This is something that has been in the planning for a period of time, and quite clearly the relationships are broken down. And the United States, when I have participated in various forums, and as we know, historically, has relied upon Australia to be a key player in the Pacific as well. Australia has been the security partner of choice for the Pacific for a long period of time. For the entire post World War Two period that's broken down, we need to repair it.
JOURNALIST: Can I just ask you on a draft for teachers, a guideline for teachers in the Northern Territory, shows teachers being urged to organise non-gendered sports teams. Do you think this is a positive thing given the current context, would you like to see that in other states or do you think it raises some concerns?
ALBANESE: Well, it's been dismissed, I note already, by the NT government, and it's not appropriate.
JOURNALIST: On doubling the fines for thuggish unions and officials, what's your position on that? Do you think it's a good idea, would you support it?
BURKE: It's no surprise, first of all, what's been announced by the Government today is not our policy. So just to give you that clip cleanly. But secondly, it is no surprise that the Government has decided the biggest issue they want to deal with is to be able to have an attack on unions and still to this day they have not legislated to deal with wage theft. So, if an employer is stealing from their workers Mr. Morrison doesn't think that's a concern. And we saw some extraordinary cases, over the time that Mr Morrison’s been Prime Minister. It's not just that they chose they couldn't get round to it. They had wage theft legislation in the parliament in front of them, written by themselves and they, together with One Nation, voted it down. So the priorities of the Government here are just completely wrong. And if they were serious about wanting to make sure we had law abiding at the workplace, the first thing to do is to make sure that people are paid properly.
JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, can I please ask you what is your view on transgender participation in women’s sports?
ALBANESE: That is covered by the Sex Discrimination Act. It's covered that girls should be able to play sport against girls and boys should be able to play sport against boys. And that should be covered, well it is covered, by the Sex Discrimination Act and that sports currently are in control of this issue. So let me tell you what this issue is really about. This is an issue about the chaos within the NSW branch of the Liberal Party and I note that, once again, we see a leaked text message that's supposed to be a private text message from the NSW Premier to the Prime Minister. Once again, this Prime Minister, the Premier, says that he didn't leak the text message, I don't know the source of that. But this is covered already by the Sex Discrimination Act.
JOURNALIST: Can I please get Tony Burke and Jim Chalmers to respond to my question as well, if that is the case?
ALBANESE: Well, they have the same position that I do. That's why I’m the leader.
JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, you said that Australia is in the naughty corner when it comes to climate change on an international stage, a key reason for that is the fact the government didn’t sign the UN pledge to end coal use. Would you sign that pledge? And if not, why not?
ALBANESE: No.
JOURNALIST: On the issue of boat turnbacks Mr Albanese, you've made the point that you now support turning back the boats, how would you implement turning back the boats? And how many did you turn back last time you were in government?
ALBANESE: Well, I note yesterday, I got a misleading question from you, with respect, Jono, because what you did was there was two separate questions and you conflated an answer.
JOURNALIST: Well, that's on your statement on radio.
ALBANESE: No, no they were two separate questions and you put to me that I gave one answer. But it was two answers to two questions, and I was perfectly accurate yesterday. Labor supports turning back boats where it's safe to do so, the same policy, exactly the same policy, as the government.
JOURNALIST: Workers in Queensland, WA and South Australia have voted in favour of industrial action. It's quite likely that strikes are going to take place in the next few weeks. Do you support these strikes? And if elected would you fully implement all recommendations of the Royal Commission and fund them?
BURKE: Well, I'll deal with the industrial relations then I'll go back on the Royal Commission. What we are seeing is pressure having built up from people's wages having flatlined for 10 years. That's what we're seeing. And to view this in any other way, I think misses the point of what's happening in households. Every week, as the pay comes through and the bills come through, it's becoming tighter and tighter and it's been going like that for a decade. What we are seeing happening at workplaces has been two things. One, unions did the right thing during the pandemic and held back on industrial action. It was incredibly responsible and it was done across the board. But secondly, what's happening now at a number of workplaces is that pressure that has building for a decade is people are saying we need to get wages moving and Mr Morrison's response to that is to legislate a pay cut.
ALBANESE: On the aged care issue. Our five point plan is directly arising from the aged care Royal Commission. That is a nurse in every nursing home 24/7. That is 215 minutes of care. That is increased wages for people in the aged care sector. That is better food and nutrition. And we've announced a specific plan with the Maggie Beer Foundation to deliver that. And the fifth and really important point is transparency and accountability. We want every dollar that goes into aged care to go into better care, and better food and better outcomes for our older Australians. And with regard to the recommendations of the Royal Commission, my observation is this – Why does the Government set up a Royal Commission and then ignore the central recommendations in it? The central recommendations of the aged care Royal Commission, in which aged care residents, aged care providers, family members, people made these submissions about the crisis in aged care. And what they got from this government was contempt. Nothing. Nothing to assist workers in the sector and you talk about the frustration that workers are feeling, workers are leaving the sector. Think about this, all of you here today and the workers here today will have parents, will have uncles and aunties will have other, if they're really young, they might have grandparents. But guess what? It might be us one day, and there won't be an aged care sector to look after them unless we do something about this. And unless we do something about it now. The title of the report is “Neglect”, neglect in one word, in one word. And what we have is the neglect of a royal commission that has been titled neglect, neglect from this government. We have made very clear what our plan is on aged care. And quite frankly, when I sat in the budget lockup with Jim and the team on the Tuesday night, because I did have a draft of the speech ready to go for Thursday, I was stunned. When I asked has anything at all happened on aged care, and this is a government that has $70 billion of additional spending with no offsets between MYEFO in December and their march budget, but they couldn't find a single dollar, aged care workers are despairing. This is tough work. It's physically demanding. They have faced with circumstances whereby they're in an aged care home and they have three buzzers going at once. Which person do they go and lift up? They have people who are living in their own soil unable to be changed for days. You have 50 per cent, 50 per cent, The Royal Commission found this. This isn't Labor Party versus Liberal party. This is the Royal Commission established by the government, found that over 50 per cent of aged care residents were not getting the nutrition that they need. They are literally starving. There is a crisis in this country and that's what this election is about. This election is about whether we have a government that looks after people, or whether we have Scott Morrison who goes missing, who goes missing unless there's a photo op, unless there's a campaign, you'll see Scott Morrison doing photo ops every day, good pictures, I've no doubt they'll deliver on that. But he doesn't deliver on his key responsibility. He always blames someone else and the aged care crisis, of which a government member said to me but there aren't any votes in it. Well, I'd tell you what this needs addressing and I make no apologies for addressing it.
JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, last week, the High Court said that it was appropriate to fine the CFMMEU the maximum amount because (inaudible) weren’t changing industrial behaviour from that union. Can I ask that you answer this question, rather than Mr Burke.
ALBANESE: He’s our spokesperson.
JOURNALIST: Okay, what's your reaction to that ruling, is now really the time to abolish the ABCC? Should we be worried about the CFMMEU under Labor?
BURKE: I do think we need to listen to what the courts have had to say with respect to the ABCC. And when the Federal Court said, through Justice Kerr, I think it was, that the ABCC was treating its job as a blood sport. Then I think we know we've got a regulator that's not doing its job. We've got a regulator that was set up to do a political job. We've got a regulator that has told Senate estimates that if it sees a safety poster, or a poster in a workplace, that is raising money for flood relief, if it also carries a union logo, it's an offence. They think those are the priorities. So, we make no apology for saying that a regulator that is ridiculously politicised, that has been criticised by the courts as behaving as though it's a Bloodsport should not be a regulator. Wherever you have a situation where there's aggression happening, wherever you have a situation where there's illegality happening, it should be the same rule across every workplace, the police should be called in. That's how you deal with illegal behaviour at every workplace. So, we make no apology for that.
JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, back to the Solomons, you referred to Zed Seselja as a junior Minister, would an Albanese Government elevate the position of the Pacific portfolio? And secondly, would you be prepared to make a personal visit to the Solomons if you’re elected?
ALBANESE: On the second, yes, I would. Yes, I would. Yes, I would. And in the first we would have sent Penny Wong, quite frankly, and that would have been appropriate.
JOURNALIST: Why won’t you sign, or why wouldn’t an Albanese government sign, the UN pledge to stop coal, why wouldn’t you sign the pledge?
ALBANESE: Because coal is a part of our energy mix here in Australia, right now. Coal is a part of our energy mix here.
JOURNALIST: What chance would a Labor Government have at hosting the COP conference, as you have said you would try and do if you will not even commit to signing the pledge?
ALBANESE: I think we would have a very good chance of hosting a COP conference and our proposal, by the way, goes to, and I'll finish with this. Our proposal goes to Australia and the Pacific hosting a COP conference. I've had the honour of going to two Conference of the Parties, the ones held in Montreal, where Kyoto came into effect with enough people ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. I also attended the COP in Nairobi, and I engaged in – one of the things about the Conference of the Parties is that it isn't just a government to government engagement, although that, of course, is the main game. It's also one where business and civil society participate in processes as well. So I think our plan very consciously as part of our announcement that we made back in December of our climate plan is about deeper engagement with the Pacific. If you go to Kiribati, or Tuvalu or any of these Pacific island nations, what you'll find is that if you ask them what is their priority, they will talk about climate change. So, it is an opportunity for us together with the Pacific to embrace them. It's a sort of constructive relationship building that's been missing from this government and I’ll make this point as well, that our climate policy is another example of the how I speak a lot about the what, including on aged care and what this campaign is about. It's about a different approach to aged care. It's about cheaper childcare. It's about strengthening Medicare. It's about more secure work and lifting wages, and cost of living issues that we see. But it's also about the how, and our climate change policy, we had more extensive negotiations and consultations with people from the Business Council of Australia, Australian industry Group, National Farmers Federation, ACCI, and the ACTU and unions. They all have been very supportive of our policy, that's what's important. We can end the climate wars in this country. And what we've seen over the last 48 hours, frankly, is a thought bubble yesterday, whereby it appears from Angus Taylor's own response, there was no actual modelling at all done. What he did was just say, Oh, well, there'll be $78 billion of additional investment. $52 billion of that is private sector investment, private sector investment that's hanging back because they need certainty, the problem for this government, and the reason why time's up for this government, is that they don't have a plan for the future. They don't have a plan to deal with the economic transformation that will be driven by the shift that is happening in the global economy, to clean energy. That is something that is happening globally. This government just have scare campaigns, they just have nonsense and making up figures and making things up. And they think that's enough to skate through without a plan for the future. Well, we have a plan for the future whereby our response on climate change, including engagement with our Pacific neighbours, will lead to cheaper, cleaner energy that will allow investment in advanced manufacturing that will allow more things to be made here that will fit in with our plan to train people for those jobs in TAFE and university. That's our plan going forward and at the same time, looking after cost of living by not attacking wages by lifting wages, and dealing with other issues such as childcare and housing. Thanks a lot.
ENDS
