Interview with Emma Rebellato - ABC News breakfast

EMMA REBELLATO, HOST: Well, for now though, we’re going to get some more on federal politics and we’re joined by the Employment Minister, Amanda Rishworth. Minister, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

AMANDA RISHWORTH, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: Great to be with you.

EMMA REBELLATO: First of all, I want to get your reaction to this news from David Jones. Nineteen stores closing, thousands of workers with a very uncertain future. What do you make of it all?

AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, first I’d say it’s obviously a very difficult time for those workers, and certainly I would urge David Jones to work with its workforce to look at how many of those workers can get redeployed in other stores, but it is a very difficult time for those workers. Of course, I very much hope that David Jones continues to be able to trade and make sure that they’re able to restructure so that they can continue to be an enduring brand here in Australia.

EMMA REBELLATO: In the past couple of weeks, we’ve learned that thousands of jobs are going, including at Qantas, Canva, and NAB. Technology and AI are really driving this. Is this what we can expect from now on? That we’re going to see these mass job losses?

AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, look, of course, particularly in those companies that you highlighted, this is very again distressing news for those affected, and we need to ensure that people are supported. Take Qantas for example. You know, there should be an expectation that Qantas works with those staff that are affected to support them into other roles within the company, and that is really important to ensure when technology gets rolled out that people are supported, upskilled, and able to still receive that employment. Broadly across the labour market, we’ve been doing monitoring. We think it’s very important to monitor. We haven't seen across the economy job losses as a result of AI, but that’s not to say we don’t need to continue monitoring this. And this is why today I have released a best practice guide for adoption of AI in the workplace to be clear about how we ensure workers are part of this transformation.

EMMA REBELLATO: I will get to that in a moment. But do you think that AI is going to kill some of these white collar jobs? Because this is what people are fearing right now, and we’re seeing evidence of that already.

AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, the data specifically that we have been monitoring suggests that there hasn’t been economy wide reduction in jobs. There are- there is some softening of jobs growth in the most exposed fifth or top quintile, but we haven’t seen massive disruption as of yet. That’s not to say we don’t need to continue monitoring this. But what’s really important is making sure that those that are affected by the introduction of AI, whether it is individual tasks within their job or whether it’s their new job design, that they are supported by their businesses and companies to take on new roles and new tasks within that company.

EMMA REBELLATO: Okay. So you’ve released this draft guide, and you’re saying that workers, as you just mentioned, should be consulted, but you’ve also said in this guide that there could even be shared benefits like higher wages and shorter hours. Is that really going to happen?

AMANDA RISHWORTH: Well, what the guide does is actually highlight a range of shared benefits. Some might be in pay or shorter working hours, but it also could be job satisfaction. What this guide looks at is how do you adopt AI in the workplace? And the first point of call is work out what the problem is. Speak with workers about where their pain point is in their job. Is it administrative tasks? Is it the tedious tasks that distract them from actually doing the part of the job they really enjoy? So there’s a range of what those shared benefits could look like. It could be job satisfaction. It could be more time.

For example, we use one example in here where teachers and educators were able to spend more time with the students doing the part of the job they like because AI assisted them in removing the tedious pain points. So, what this guide is about is how do you make sure that workers can see the benefit of it, and that benefit is a range of different benefits. But people have got to see how it does help them with their job and not actually make it more difficult.

EMMA REBELLATO: Okay. Well, I’m sure some of those people who are potentially having to look for new work because of these job cuts aren’t going to be overly happy about some of this.

Let’s talk about home loans, because we’ve just seen new data from the ABS showing a number of new home loans have had a big drop, the largest quarterly fall in home loans on record. Are your government’s tax policies to blame here?

AMANDA RISHWORTH: Look, there’s a range of factors, of course, affecting lending volume, and that includes, of course, interest rates and global uncertainty. But what I would point to as you drill down into this data, you can see a number of things. For example, probably the biggest concentrate of reduction was in investors buying existing homes, and that means there’s a shift towards investors buying new homes. That, of course, is important. It adds to supply, but also a shift towards home ownership. And we want to see more home ownership. That’s been a focus of our government through our policies, and that's a good thing.

EMMA REBELLATO: Amanda Rishworth, thanks for your time.

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