Interview with Patricia Karvelas - ABC Insiders

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: Tony Burke is the Minister for Industrial Relations and Workplace Relations, and he's our guest this morning. Welcome.

TONY BURKE MP, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS, MINISTER FOR THE ARTS: Morning.

KARVELAS: Minister, we had intended to start, of course, on your portfolio, but this story out of the United States is incredibly disturbing, the sound of shots fired and a bleeding ear from Donald Trump. His campaign says he's fine, but what are your reflections on what we're seeing unfold in the United States today?

BURKE: I expect more information will unfold during the course of this program as well, while we get the facts. I'm pleased with the reports that the former President, President Trump is safe, and I hope everybody involved at the rally is safe there as well.

It's a reminder, no matter how much extra information comes through, as to how important it is that violence plays no part in any democracy, and it's a really important reminder in the United States and in all democracies around the world.

KARVELAS: And of course our panel was talking about some of the dis‑ and misinformation about who's responsible. We don't know any of these details yet. But does that concern you? When you talk about the health of democracy, that kind of misinformation and disinformation, of course, has the ability to really incite perhaps more of these kinds of tensions.

BURKE: Yeah, it's the exact reason why I started by saying more information will come during the course of the program. The willingness to wait for the facts is something that's often not there, and the misinformation, once it spreads, can be very difficult to undo.

Every democracy, the starting point is that we have a shared set of facts, and that's why it's important for me not to speculate in any way, more information will come through, but I guess the two principles for any democracy have to be you want the shared set of facts and you want people to be free from violence.

KARVELAS: Absolutely. Does the Australian Government think the American democracy is safe? Are you worried about what you're seeing unfold in the United States?

BURKE: We're worried about the events today in terms of the safety of the people involved. The United States has always been a robust democracy and our alliance with America has always continued regardless of the different administrations who have been there from time to time. So we don't look to play a role in their elections in any way.

KARVELAS: Now, Minister, I was intending to start, and I will go there now, to talk to you about these explosive allegations about some of the underworld infiltration of the CFMEU, the Nine Papers have been publishing a series of stories, and I know that you're across them. Have those stories and those revelations shocked you?

BURKE: The extent of the criminal elements that have been there I find absolutely abhorrent, absolutely abhorrent, and when I drove ‑ we're in Canberra now ‑ when I drove down yesterday afternoon, I went straight to my office in Parliament House and signed a letter to the Secretary of my Department asking for advice. As these, you know, there's more to come from everything that we understand. I want advice on all the powers that I have with respect to what we're seeing out of the construction division of the CFMEU, in particular Victoria, but I don't know whether it's going to broaden with the extra stories.

As that advice comes in I'm effectively going to be looking at three things: the advice on the extent of my powers, the allegations as they're revealed, and finally the extent to which the union itself acts immediately and effectively. If they don't, I will.

KARVELAS: Well, they haven't yet, and doesn't that concern you? It doesn't look like there's a great appetite for reform in that union.

BURKE: The fact that John Setka went is a start, it is in no way the end of what needs to be done. The criminal elements, for example, people involved in outlaw motorcycle gangs having the place of delegates on site ‑‑

KARVELAS: Is that unacceptable?

BURKE: Completely unacceptable.

KARVELAS: And yet they do.

BURKE: Completely.

KARVELAS: And they still do.

BURKE: Completely unacceptable. That's completely unacceptable. And so in the advice I've sought from the Department, I want to make absolutely clear, everything is on the table.

KARVELAS: Like what?

BURKE: Every single power ‑‑

KARVELAS: Can you give me some of the options that are potential ‑ one option of course, Bob Hawke did a very significant thing when he deregistered the former union, the BLF. Are you prepared to deregister the construction division of the CFMEU?

BURKE: I've sought advice on all my powers including that one, including appointing administrators to the different branches. I've sought advice on all those powers, I'm not taking anything off the table.

KARVELAS: So you are seriously, Minister, considering deregistering the union if that's within your powers? 

BURKE: If it's what needs to be done ‑‑

KARVELAS: Yeah. What's the threshold ‑‑

BURKE: ‑‑ and if it's within ‑‑

KARVELAS: ‑‑ sorry to interrupt, what's the threshold?

BURKE: The threshold is what I've asked the Department to provide me. So I've asked the Department to provide me with the thresholds of the different powers that I have, and for them to be looking as the evidence emerges to see what meets those thresholds and what doesn't.

But when you look at the role of union delegates, when I think of union delegates, I think of somebody who will serve you on a checkout at Woolies or Coles, who will work as a cleaner in a major centre, who is a highly trained colleague and already an employee, but who's been trained in people's rights and helps their fellow workers. That's what it's about. That's what the union movement uses delegates for, and to see any window where it's being used as a criminal element is completely not just a problem, completely unacceptable.

KARVELAS: On the basis of the allegations alone that have been published, and as you know, defamation laws are pretty serious in our country, newspapers don't rush to publish unless those allegations are very, very serious, is the case already made for that union to be deregistered?

BURKE: There's a question of the legal thresholds, the powers, all of that.  There's also the implications as to what that would mean. So there are some actions where they might sound tough and actually create a worse element, because you end up with people with even less regulation around them. All of that ‑‑

KARVELAS: How? How would that happen?

BURKE: Because registered organisations have ‑ the only reason I can intervene is because we're talking about registered organisations. Some of the powers here as well go directly to the police. There is a taskforce that operates between the Australian Federal Police and the State police ‑‑

KARVELAS: Is there an active investigation into this?

BURKE: ‑‑ specifically into outlaw motorcycle gangs, so there will be elements of this that they are dealing with. There are elements of one aspect that was in the papers today where the Fair Work Ombudsman has already been public about an active investigation there.

So there are regulators in the police and the Fair Work Ombudsman and the Fair Work Commission. They may take action unilaterally on this, they're all statutory authorities, it's for them to make those decisions. As I see what they do and I see what evidence emerges, I'm making sure the advice to me puts everything on the table with a very clear signal to the union about what's expected. If they don't act, I will.

KARVELAS: We've had several Royal Commissions, Minister, into the construction industry and the union, the Cole Royal Commission, the Heydon Royal Commission. This culture of lawlessness is well known in this union. We know this. These stories have been going for years. If you live in Victoria, this is something you just know if you do business. So given that, why did you abolish the ABCC, which was the body which was meant to be the tough cop on the beat?

BURKE: That's how it was packaged, but that's not what happened. Let's remember the period of the previous government was the period where John Setka's power massively increased. That's what happened while they were in office.

If you look at the outcomes of the ABCC, and all the allegations that have come out so far, they're all allegations that occurred during the life of the ABCC. It didn't fix any of them.

KARVELAS: So did the ABCC fail, or it didn't have the right powers?

BURKE: It completely failed, for the simple reason that the whole concept of it was wrong from the beginning, which was about pushing people into their corners. That's what it was about, and that meant you would always in those situations empower the most militant players. That's what happens when you push people into their corners.

Look at the outcomes. We had the pandemic, so you've got to go before the pandemic to get realistic statistics. Every year of the ABCC productivity in the construction industry went backwards. You compare the days lost to industrial disputes when the ABCC was in place to what we have now, it has now fallen by 30 per cent.

The outcomes for productivity are better now because we abolished the ABCC. What these allegations make clear is there is more to be done, but going back to the old method is clearly not the way to go.

KARVELAS: Okay, but isn't it the case that given all of the evidence that you've just supplied that the ABCC needed tougher powers then, if it wasn't able to do what it should have been doing?

BURKE: It was never able to deal with police matters, because police matters have to be dealt with by the police forces. So there are some matters here that properly go to the police.

The concept of industrial relations at its best is when you have bargaining working properly and bargaining working in a way that brings parties together. That's what happens in pretty much every other industry. You'll get occasional aberrations but basically that's how the system works. We have to find a way for that to work in construction too.

KARVELAS: Minister, a lot of public money is bankrolling some of this illegal behaviour, including lots of Commonwealth money. Will you halt the money going to these projects if it's been funnelled into, as you say, union delegates who are motorcycle gang members?

BURKE: I don't think anyone has any interest in halting infrastructure projects, I don't think ‑‑

KARVELAS: But isn't it inflating the price of those infrastructure projects?

BURKE: I don't think anyone has any interest in that. What we want to be able to see, and this is why I've got everything on the table in terms of cleaning this up. What I want to make sure that we're able to deliver is a situation where workers are well‑paid, where the companies are able to be profitable, where taxpayers are getting value for money, and where the infrastructure we need is being built. Certainly at the moment, and you look at it any time, if they're your four objectives there is no place for a criminal element in any of it.

KARVELAS: So how are you going to clean it up? You say it's up to the union to prove that it can do it. I think a lot of our viewers watching now would think this union is not up to that job.

BURKE: That's why there's no other organisation where I've asked for the exact sort of advice that I've asked for yesterday afternoon.

KARVELAS: And how quickly will you act?

BURKE: There are stories that are going to continue to run, I'm told, during the course of the week. I'm certainly not going to end up taking an action where the day later I say, "That actually wasn't quite the right one". So during the course of this week my Department and myself will be watching the evidence as it comes out. I've put the union absolutely on notice today in the conversation that we've just had here on air.

KARVELAS: There's not just a few bad apples. Do you think this is systemic?

BURKE: It's certainly not fixed by John Setka leaving, it's certainly not fixed yet. That was the start, but people need to know that the criminal element needs to be gone, needs to be gone very quickly, and I am ready to act.

KARVELAS: What do you say to people who think that a Labor Government isn't capable, because of the financial contributions that the CFMEU makes to Labor election campaigns, of cleaning up this union?

BURKE: I couldn't care less about the financial contributions.

KARVELAS: Why not stop the donations then?

BURKE: Because I care about ‑ sorry, the donations will be determined by the party office, and you know the separation there. Ministers aren't involved in those decisions, nor do I believe we should be.

The thing that I'm making sure of is that I do care about the workforce in construction, I do care about the huge safety risks for workers in construction. I want people to be able to go to work safe ‑ in terms of safe workplaces for the work health and safety, but I also want it to be free from bullying, I also want it to be free from thuggery. That's part of workplace safety, and the union at the moment clearly, at a large number of sites, is not delivering that.

KARVELAS: And are you worried that taxpayer money is being wasted by the union through this criminality?

BURKE: The fact that taxpayer money is involved at some of the sites gives us potentially an extra point of leverage, but I'm not going to punish Australians on their infrastructure. There are other ways that we intend to fix this, and we will.

KARVELAS: Okay. Minister, I just want to change the conversation before I say good‑bye to you and talk to you about the antisemitism envoy and the Islamophobia envoy that will be announced. Why wasn't the Islamophobia envoy announced? My understanding is that you've had trouble hiring for that, and when will it be announced?

BURKE: You need to make sure that whoever is chosen is the right person to give advice to the Government, but also has the broad support of the community that is subject to that sort of bigotry.

Now to make sure that we've got the right person, we would have liked to have made the announcements together. We had a situation where on the antisemitism envoy – international conference, there are already 35 countries with this position around the world, and we wanted to make sure we were represented there. There was no point rushing the second appointment to make sure you could announce them together, even though we would have liked to have been able to.

KARVELAS: Okay. And timing of the Islamophobia ‑ is that this week, that's what I've been told; is that likely to happen, and do you know who it is?

BURKE: It will happen when it's ready.

KARVELAS: Do you know who it is?

BURKE: It will happen when it's ready.

KARVELAS: Has someone said yes?

BURKE: It will happen when it's ready.

KARVELAS: Okay. You are in a seat being targeted by the Muslim Votes, loose group, we're not kind of sure exactly how they'll operate. Are you in real trouble in your seat?

BURKE: I've always viewed my seat as a marginal, I never take it for granted. Regardless of who runs, what needs to be known is there is a genuine sentiment in the community of deep frustration that they want our position with respect to Gaza to be stronger. That is a real sentiment that is there in the community.

That's why some of the things that we've done people have been very happy about in terms of, you know, getting aid to the region from $10 million up to beyond $70 million, moving the embassy from Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv as the Government policy, calling out the illegal status of the settlements, referring again to the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

There's a lot that people have been happy with. People were glad when we voted for ceasefire, glad when we voted for improved Palestinian recognition. Do they want more? Yes, they do. 

KARVELAS: Minister, thank you for joining us.

BURKE: Pleasure to be with you.