BEVAN:
Good morning Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning David.
BEVAN:
Prime Minister, you clearly see this as a significant endorsement of the Federal Government's IR laws, that one million people have decided to sign up to AWAs?
PRIME MINISTER:
I certainly do, Mr Beazley says that he will abolish AWAs, he faces the problem that at the time of the next election there could be close to one million people working under AWAs. What's happened in the last couple of weeks is the one millionth AWA has been signed and lodged and it involves a small enterprise in Adelaide and I am going to visit that enterprise and over that period of time we've had AWAs now for a number of years, the greater flexibility of AWAs has been embraced by the Australian workforce and the signing of AWAs has accelerated greatly since the changes in March of this year. The month of September saw a 46 per cent increase in the number of AWAs compared with the average monthly signing up to AWAs during 2005, and we've had since WorkChoices came into operation, we've had about 117,000 new AWAs signed. What all of this indicates is that businesses and employees alike see the advantages of AWAs and it is just pushing against reality for the Labor Party to say if we win the election, we'll abolish AWAs, we'll get rid of this flexibility, we'll deny this freedom of choice to growing numbers of Australian workers, and I certainly believe in AWAs, I don't believe that they should be the only way people are employed, certainly not. Many people will simply continue to be employed by being paid above the award through some loose arrangement with their employer and that is fine, some will have collective agreements negotiated by their union and that's fine, some will have collective arguments that don't involve a union, that's fine too. So I am all for choice, let many ways of employing each other bloom, that's my philosophy if I can vary a famous phrase from years ago.
BEVAN:
But that's (inaudible) comes after many years of economic boom, economic growth. Does convincing the Australian people that they have nothing to fear from the IR changes remain your greatest political challenge, because people know that times are good right now and they worry when times will inevitably turn sour?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I am working hard to stop the times turning sour and I am not a fatalist about these things, there is no reason why Australia can't have, continue to have prosperity if the right policies are followed, if the wrong policies are followed then we won't continue to have prosperity. The question of what my great political challenges are is a matter for commentators. I try and bring in good policy for the Australian people and we need to maintain the industrial relations reforms because they are important to our future prosperity.
BEVAN:
But you've streamlined the number of protections which is another way of saying you've reduced the number of protections, (inaudible) stripped it down to core protection, and the argument seems to be that that will benefit the economy and a strong economy is the best way to benefit workers, is that a fair...?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, certainly a strong economy is the best guarantee that workers have, you are right about that. You can have all the protection in the world for workers, but if a firm is losing money it will sack workers and it doesn't matter what protections you have and that is the reality, therefore the aim of an industrial relations policy has to be to promote economic growth. Because when you have economic growth, you have rising wages and you have falling unemployment. I mean since WorkChoices have been introduced, there's been 170,000 new jobs, real wages have continued to rise and we've got the lowest number of industrial disputes since records began being kept.
BEVAN:
But the answer seems to be well if you don't like this AWA, if you don't like this employer what they are offering you, times are good, you'll simply be able to get another job because jobs are easy to get, what happens when jobs aren't easy to get Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the aim is never to allow that situation to come.
BEVAN:
Yes but...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, I can't...
BEVAN:
You can't guarantee economic prosperity. [inaudible] something in writing to say look these are your benefits, good times and bad.
PRIME MINISTER:
No I am sorry that's where, with respect, you are wrong, a written guarantee that if you have a job you have certain benefits is useless if you don't have a job, and that's my whole point. My whole point is that you have to have an industrial relations system that keeps the economy growing because a growing economy is the best guarantor of job security and real wages. Back in the early 1990s when there were more than a million people our of work, there were a lot more theoretical things written down, there were all sorts of things written down then, but it didn't stop people being sacked when firms lost money. There is no industrial relations system - this is where the unions really mislead people, they run around saying well you've got to have this and you've got to have that as a guarantee without acknowledging that a guarantee of conditions if you have a job is worthless if you don't have a job and the whole idea of these reforms is to balance economic expansion and job protection and that's what we've done and the proof is in the way things have gone and will continue to go under the new legislation. We were told when this legislation was brought in, we were told by the Labor Party that the sky would fall in, there would be mass sackings, wages would be slashed, industrial disputes would soar, the exact opposite has happened and six months has now gone by and the sky is still high above us and the wages are still growing and we have a 30-year low in unemployment. Now I know the Labor Party is broken-hearted about all of that because their predictions didn't come true.
BEVAN:
We're talking to Prime Minister John Howard, he is in Sydney, we're in Adelaide, but this afternoon he'll be in Adelaide to witness the one millionth AWA being signed in Adelaide later on today. Our phone lines are open and he is happy to take calls, 1300 222 891. John has called from Marino Rocks, g'day John.
CALLER:
G'day David. Prime Minister, the issue that David raised with you briefly the core issue that I'm concerned about that when someone is offered an AWA by their employer they really have got no choice that if you don't sign up on this AWA then as you said when this legislation came in earlier, go and find another job, but that's not easy to do if you've been with an organisation for 30-odd years and you just have to walk out and go green on to the job market and I think the whole system is wrong and I think it's unfair that people have said 'well there's the AWA, you're no longer under the award, you either sign off on it or there's the door'.
PRIME MINISTER:
Your comment about the law is wrong. You can't be sacked for refusing to sign an AWA. You can't, that's prohibited. It's expressly stated in the law that you can't, if you're an employee and you're employed under some other arrangement you can't be sacked because you refuse to sign an AWA. It has long been the case that if you are a new entrant in the workforce and go along to a firm and the firm says well I employ everybody on the award or I employ everybody on a collective agreement, or I employ people on AWAs well that's a condition of employment. There are some firms that refuse to give people the option of an AWA, they insist that they be employed according to the award or over award or whatever might be the arrangement and we recognise that employers have a right to do that, but employers can't in relation to their existing employees use the threat of dismissal to force them on to an AWA.
BEVAN:
Prime Minister, what would happen to John of Marino Rocks if his employer calls him in and says look, your latest agreement which might have been the result of collective bargaining is about to expire, I'm going to offer you this AWA, John says 'no I'm not going to sign it', what happens then?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you can't sack people because they refuse to sign a particular agreement, that's what the law says.
BEVAN:
What happens if the employer says well this is all that I'm offering you?
PRIME MINISTER:
It would depend entirely obviously on John from wherever on his economic circumstances. He might decide he will agree with that, he might decide no, he might investigate what options, and if people are threatened with dismissal through refusal to sign AWAs my advice is they should go off to the Office of Workplace Services and the company will hear from the Office of Workplace Services very smartly.
BEVAN:
But you won't require John's employer to continue to employ him on the old agreement.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he can't sack him because he refuses to sign an AWA.
BEVAN:
Andrew calling from Salisbury, good morning Andrew,
CALLER:
Good morning...Prime Minister as well. My question is earlier this year your Government was very strong on the importance of history as a component of education for our young people, primarily to give them a context of [inaudible], where their culture fits then in the wider world of course, quite admirable qualities. I'm wondering if there is a need for your Government to require the states to consider to give a degree of compulsory education on where young people fit in the whole IR context, their rights, their responsibilities, those and also the OHS side of things.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think it's important that education systems provide a broad outline of people's rights and obligations in our society including what you have mentioned, the degree of specificity depends entirely upon individual situations and entirely upon the preferences of individual schools. I mean, you might argue that people should be given detailed instruction in relation to IR, it depends on how the instruction is delivered, if it is delivered in a hostile context, if it is delivered from the perspective of new industrial relations laws are all about robbing people of their rights well of course I'm opposed to that because it's false instruction. But if it's about telling people that we have a society where both employers and employees have rights and that there are protections built into the law but in the end people's success in the workplace depends very much on their own efforts and the strength of the economy and all of those things, then I'm in favour of it. A lot of these things can very much be in the eye of the beholder and I think I know where your question is coming from and I think you understand my answer.
BEVAN:
Where do you think this question is coming from?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is a suggestion that there is something sinister about the new laws. I think I'm right aren't I?
BEVAN:
There is a report from WA today that the resources boom is sucking teenagers in the West away from education and into the workforce, while we're talking about kids. What do you think about a push from Labor to make school attendance compulsory up to year 12?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm against making in mandatory that people complete year 12, I'm in favour of improving the choices so that people are encouraged to stay on to year 12 if they want to, that's why we've introduced the Australian Technical Colleges. The biggest innovation in this whole area in the last 20 years, what Australian Technical Colleges will do is provide added incentives for young people to stay on to year 12 but with a bias in their education towards apprenticeships and trade skills and I would also say to Dr Emerson that his emphasis on school-based apprenticeships is welcome. I agree with him, he ought to talk to the Western Australian and New South Wales Labor Governments and ask both of them why up until now they have opposed school-based apprenticeships. It's only now, after a lot of pushing from me that the New South Wales Labor Government has finally got around to making it possible to have school-based apprenticeships in that State. There has been enormous opposition to them from the unions and it's only under the spotlight of debate on mutual recognition of skills around the country that the New South Wales Government has finally and very reluctantly come to the party on this issue. But I don't think you should force everybody to stay to year 12. I think we should expand the choices, I'm very much in favour of doing that, that's what we're doing with Australian Technical Colleges, but not everybody is suitable for a university education and we have to get back to the time when a prized and valued technical qualification was as important to somebody's future as a university degree, that's what I believe in. I believe in people being given every encouragement to go to university, but I also believe equally that they should be given every encouragement to become a tradesman and to get a technical qualification and the whole elevation of status that technical education that's involved in the Australian Technical Colleges will be very beneficial in that process.
BEVAN:
We're talking to Prime Minister John Howard, he is in Sydney but later on today he will make his way to Adelaide to witness the one millionth AWA, that's Australian Workplace Agreement, being signed in Adelaide. Prime Minister, Daryl has called to say that a company with fewer than 100 employees doesn't have to give any reasons for sacking an employee and I think you see where he is coming from.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the unfair dismissal provisions, the unfair dismissal provisions have been removed for firms employing fewer than 100 people and we've done that because the old provisions discouraged a lot of firms from taking on new staff and we had ample evidence over a 10-year period that it was actually destroying jobs rather than protecting jobs and that's why we changed the law. And I believe it's been a beneficial change, because often a firm will say well I'll take on a few more employees but if one of them doesn't work out for whatever combination of reasons then I can let him or her go. And I don't think that is unreasonable. I mean the alternative is to say you can't do that, and that was the old system. So what the firm does is not employ the four or five people.
BEVAN:
But if we go back to our earlier caller who says I've been at this firm for 30 years and I've just been told that the current agreement has expired. You say you can't be sacked for not signing the AWA, but if it's a firm of fewer than 100 employees the employer doesn't have to give a reason.
PRIME MINISTER:
If you sack somebody, if the real reason for sacking somebody is a refusal to sign an AWA well that is an unlawful termination and the exemption in relation to unfair dismissal doesn't apply. It depends on the circumstances.
BEVAN:
Who's going to fight that out?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is financial assistance in relation to unlawful termination claims, some $4000 and we made provision for that. So it will depend on the circumstances. But once again, these things involve a balance between what Darryl may see as the rights and interests of a person in a particular position and also the rights and interests of those three or four employees who might otherwise remain on the dole queue because the small firm couldn't afford to run the risk of an unfair dismissal suit. And having to pay go-away money of thirty or forty thousand dollars a year to ensure that the disharmony in his workplace caused by an employee who knows that he can't ever be let go, no matter what his behaviour is, is causing.
You have to have a commonsense balance in these things. I'm not arguing, there's nothing in our laws that provide for some kind of dog-eat-dog attitude in the workplace, quite the reverse. But we all know from our experience there can sometimes be in firms, particularly in small workplaces, people who are all the time swimming against the tide in relation to their fellow workers and their employer. And there are some situations where the position becomes irreconcilable. Now in those circumstances, you have to take a balanced view. Is it better to have an atmosphere in which employers are encouraged to take on more staff, or frightened of taking on more staff? I think the former, because that's more likely to lead to more jobs and more opportunities.
BEVAN:
You're listening to 891 Mornings where it's seven minutes to nine.
[break]
Donald has called from Highbury with a question for the Prime Minister. Good morning Donald.
CALLER:
Good morning. Is that Mr Howard?
BEVAN:
Mr Howard's listening.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm listening Donald.
CALLER:
I've been on the disability pension for three years and since I've had my artificial hip operation, I've had my left hip done, I feel fantastic and I want to get back to work. And I can't get work. I've been to, or going through Centrelink and [inaudible] and I've put resumes into many, many firms. I'm a fitter and turner, a toolmaker, a pressure welder and I've got a security licence and forklift licence, and I can't seem to get work. A lot of it's probably because I'm 58 years old.
PRIME MINISTER:
How old are you?
CALLER:
Fifty-eight.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh that's very young.
CALLER:
Yes, and I have had five hip replacements, artificial heart valve, pacemaker, three skull fractures, fractured hand, fractured pelvis, but I feel 100 per cent fit now. I can walk for miles and I feel fantastic since I've had my left hip done. No pain after 45 years and I just want to get back into the workforce.
BEVAN:
Okay Donald, let's get a response from the Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well perhaps I could ask Donald a question. He's been in touch with a Job Network provider and Centrelink and everything...
CALLER:
And I am working with CRS at the moment. I've got an appointment this morning with them.
PRIME MINISTER:
You've got an appointment with whom?
CALLER:
CRS. They've been very good so far but they can't get work for me, they just sort of help me on the way.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the only immediate response I can give you is to say I'd just be interested if you wanted to, to leave all of your particulars with the station. If you have the qualifications you mention, it does sound a little strange in today's job market that you are not able to get work. Donald, that does sound strange to me. I want to make it clear, I'm not promising I can get you a job, I obviously can't do that. I don't make employment decisions for the hundreds of thousands of firms in Australia and nor should I. It's not my money, it's theirs. But I am just a little curious that somebody who has got the qualifications you say you've got, that you're having trouble getting a job.
BEVAN:
Thanks for your call Donald. Prime Minister, before you leave us, earlier this week your Attorney-General Phillip Ruddock was talking to our listeners. It followed an interview with Barrie Cassidy on The Insiders. And in the discussion with our listeners, he compared sleep deprivation interrogation techniques with jetlag and a Lateline interview. I wonder whether you endorse your Attorney-Generals' comments?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I didn't hear that. I saw him on The Insiders programme express a view about sleep deprivation. I didn't hear the reference to an interview on Lateline. Are you suggesting that he said that an interview on Lateline was the equivalent of sleep deprivation? I think he was probably being facetious. Now come on. I mean I've watched Lateline a lot. I don't regard it as a form of sleep deprivation. It sometimes makes me more awake than ever because of some of the people who are interviewed.
BEVAN:
Well it was a serious question which was followed up, and we spoke to him for some time about the issue of sleep deprivation and interrogation techniques. Obviously it's got an Adelaide connection because there's an Adelaide man being held in Guantanamo Bay and our listeners are interested in...
PRIME MINISTER:
All of the investigations that have been made in relation to Mr Hicks have said that allegations of torture have not been established.
BEVAN:
Phillip Ruddock doesn't see sleep deprivation as equivalent to torture. And when we asked him about that, he said "look, I'm deprived of sleep right now. I don't consider it torture." And he'd just got off a plane.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what are you saying? What are you asking me?
BEVAN:
Well what I am putting to you is that some of our listeners found those comments flippant.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, it depends entirely on the circumstances. But people in Mr Ruddock's position are entitled occasionally to answer questions like that in the way they choose. You're asking me, well obviously he wasn't serious when he said getting off a plane was the same as sleep deprivation as an interrogation technique. It depends entirely on the degree, it depends entirely. I mean if somebody who is trained to be a terrorist has, as part of that training, a capacity to deal with what you and I might understand to be vigorous interrogation, and that inevitably is going to involve on some occasions some sleep deprivation. It depends entirely on degree. If you're asking me do I support torture, no I don't. Australia never will condone torture. If you're asking me that every piece of interrogation that involves sleep deprivation of some degree, that that's torture, I don't necessarily agree with that. It depends upon the severity of it, the regularity of it, the circumstances in which it is conducted. So that's what makes yes and no answers to things like that so very difficult.
BEVAN:
Prime Minister John Howard, thanks for talking to us on 891 Mornings.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]