Prime Minister
SABRA LANE: Prime Minister, good morning and welcome to AM.
PRIME MINISTER: Good morning, Sabra.
LANE: Reform means a change to improve something. Can you guarantee that no worker will be worse off after this process?
PRIME MINISTER: We're getting workers and employers together, their representatives, we're getting them together in a room to work out how they can make their enterprises and make workers in a stronger position. I mean, it's being done directly between those who make decisions in workplaces, workers and employers alike. And that's what we've been initiated. So it's a consensus based process.
LANE: Can you guarantee, though, that no worker will be worse off?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this is a process that will just flow through, Sabra. We're getting people together to agree to work together. So we're looking at people agreeing to what goes forward. Those who come from both perspectives. And so, you know, this is a process that wants to see workers better off. It’s a process that wants to see employers better off, businesses better off. But most importantly, this is about more jobs and what I want to see come out of this is more jobs.
LANE: And giving a guarantee, it's as simple as yes or no.
PRIME MINISTER: Sabra, the problem with that position, and this has been the problem with this industrial relations debate for all time, is it quickly descends into these sorts of issues. And we need to get past all that. We need to get past the point where it's turned into black and white discussions. This needs to be a genuine process where people come together and give it a real go to see how we can make businesses work better for employees and employers. And we're providing that opportunity. We're bringing people together for that purpose to create jobs. And that's what we need right now, Sabra. We can't have those old debates anymore and it’s the same for where the coverage of these issues comes from. That only gets in the way of people getting jobs.
LANE: Under the 80s Accord though, the Prime Minister, the government offered workers family payments, child care, the introduction of Medicare in exchange for restricted wage demands. What can the government bring to the table this time?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the people coming to the table, as I said, are employees and employers. The government is bringing people together.
LANE: And the government is empty handed?
PRIME MINISTER: No. What I'm saying is that this isn't some reheat of a process done by a former Labour government. It's not an Accord. It's a new process. It's about bringing people together to see what they can agree on in areas like how we deal with casualisation and full time work, how we can ensure that people get paid properly, how we can ensure on new sites that people will invest money in creating jobs because they can get some certainty over what the workplace arrangements will be. This is about employers and employees working together.
LANE: That casual workforce point that you make is a relevant one. It's remained fixed at about 25 per cent for 20 years but the gig economy workers aren't counted as casuals and their numbers have grown drastically. They don't get benefits like sick pay and holiday leave and many will be suspicious that this is an attempt to push more workers out into this form of work with no safety nets. What can you say to them?
PRIME MINISTER: I don't know why they would say that. There are many things happening in our economy, Sabra, but I think on the issue of casualisation, we've already seen it come through to a number of awards now where the opportunity should be there for employers, where they're effectively operating as full time, sorry, employees operating as full time employees, that they would have the opportunity convert to full time work. Now, that's a reasonable position. That's something that's already commenced happening and it's something that needs to be done in a fair and a reasonable way. And that's one of the key issues that I'm sure is going to be discussed about how that can be best achieved.
LANE: Casual and part time workers are often women, and many have shouldered a bigger burden during the pandemic being stood aside and carry more of the burden of homeschooling work. What's in this for them?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I made this point yesterday. I mean, where we were most successful going into the pandemic in our economy was with job creation for women in the workforce. Workforce participation hit its highest level ever and the gender pay gap actually fell to record lows. And so when you create jobs in these businesses again, on the other side and out of this pandemic, I believe it will be women who will be one of the key beneficiaries, because that is what was achieved last time. Where you can get better arrangements, where the businesses are successful and they can create more jobs, what we are seeing in our workforce it is often and usually women who are getting the bigger share of those new jobs.
LANE: You were elected in 2007 when the Coalition was thrown out of office, partly then because of the WorkChoices IR laws. What lessons did you learn from that time?
PRIME MINISTER: It's very important that, you know, we've got to put down the weapons and everyone's got to do that. You know, employers, employees, political parties and frankly, commentators in the media as well. We’ve got to get a better environment in which people can have the sensible discussions. We can't have the gotchas and we can't have the absolutism in all of this. We've got to give people the room to work through this. We haven't made any progress in this area for 20 years. The initial intentions of things like enterprise bargaining…
LANE: Sure, but what did you personally learn…
PRIME MINISTER: This is what I'm telling you I've learned, Sabra. These are the things we've learned. The combative approach where everyone stays in their grooves and does the same thing they've always done around these issues. And it goes for everybody in this debate, not just the politicians, not just the employers and employees, but the media, too. We've got to give this a go and that means we've got to do things differently.
LANE: The Fair Work Commission recently ruled long term casuals are eligible for annual leave. Will the government legislate to get around that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this has been a quite a significant case, and there are two aspects to it. There's the issue of people who have been working in companies and who have effectively been working as permanent employees and that's being recognised. And then there's the issue that where these individuals have been being paid higher amounts as casuals in recognition of being casuals. And so this has created an issue where we could have very serious liabilities that are created, particularly for small and medium sized employers. And right now, that could cost a lot of jobs and it could put a lot of small businesses out of business. And I can tell you, if there's no business, there's no jobs and everybody loses. So we're looking at the implications of that right now and we'll work through this constructively and try and get some certainty into this area as soon as we possibly can, because certainty equals jobs.
LANE: The Queensland Premier says her borders won't reopen until New South Wales and Victoria have had no local cases of Covid-19 for 28 days. And that, she says that's the advice of the state's medical, Chief Medical Officer. Are you satisfied with that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, the National Cabinet has never agreed or never had a position that state borders should be closed. So whether it's in Tasmania or South Australia, WA or Queensland or anywhere else, the Premiers who've made unilateral decisions or their governments have within their states and territories, they have to justify that to their own citizens and the impacts that has. Now, we don't have any medical expert advice that has come through the national process which recommended that and so that's why premiers here are making those calls based on whatever advice that they've taken and they would need to be transparent about that.
LANE: All right, Prime Minister, we're out of time. Thanks for joining the program.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks a lot, Sabra.