Interview with Dales Whyte, 4RO Breakfast

DALES WHYTE, HOST: Time to say good morning to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Senator for Queensland, Murray Watt. Good morning, sir. How are you?

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: I’m great, Dales. It’s good to be with you. I hope you’re going well, too.

DALES WHYTE: Well, we’re getting there, my young Senator. We’re getting there slowly but surely.

MURRAY WATT: I like you already – no one’s called me a young Senator for quite a while. But I’ll take that. I’ll take that. I had a birthday the other day, so I’m feeling just that little bit older, actually. But I’ll take that.

DALES WHYTE: How old were you?

MURRAY WATT: I turned 52. But that’s young these days, isn’t it?

DALES WHYTE: It is when you’re my age, I can tell you. Now, you were up here because of the $2 billion investment in the Australian-made aluminium industry. You were at Boyne Island yesterday. How did that go?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, really good day in Gladstone yesterday, Dales. So, I’ve been in CQ a couple of times already this year – Rocky last week and Gladstone yesterday. You may have seen the Prime Minister made a big announcement earlier in the week that’s really going to benefit towns like Gladstone and make sure that we can keep jobs in heavy industry like aluminium for decades to come. The Boyne Smelter, if you haven’t been there, employs over a thousand people making aluminium that gets used here in Australia and gets sent overseas. But also, it’s a really important customer for all sorts of manufactured goods that are made in Gladstone, Rocky and other towns like it. We caught up with a number of manufacturing businesses yesterday, SMEs – small and medium businesses – who supply to Boyne Smelters. And what this announcement is about doing is assisting Rio Tinto and other companies like them to make the move towards cleaner renewable energy in the future, which is what they’re going to need to do to remain competitive with the world. I’ve been to Boyne Smelters a couple of times now, and some of the other facilities around the country, and what all of the companies are telling us is that their international competitors are moving towards renewable energy as the source. These things use so much electricity. The Boyne Smelter alone uses the same amount of electricity every day as Brisbane does. That gives you some idea of how much they use.

DALES WHYTE: It’s a massive installation.

MURRAY WATT: Huge.

DALES WHYTE: I lived in Gladstone for two years when I was at the local radio station down there when it first launched, so I know it quite well.

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, and you’d know how important those jobs are then, as well to a town like that.

DALES WHYTE: Oh, yes, well and truly. It’s a vital part of our economy. Just want to ask you, Jack called when he knew I was going to be having a chat to you, and he cited President Trump getting rid of the Paris Accord. Is that going to happen for us as well? Because, gee, the cost of living is going up and renewables, they may be great but they’re not doing much for our economy.

MURRAY WATT: I'm afraid to tell Jack that we won’t be pulling out of the Paris Accord. Our Government is very committed towards helping us reach net zero emissions by 2050. Obviously, that’s partly for environmental reasons, and, you know, all the scientists tell us that rising temperatures are one of the causes of the natural disasters that we have in Australia becoming more frequent and more intense. So, there’s environmental reasons to act, but also economically. As I say, all around the world countries are moving towards net zero emissions, and one of the reasons for doing that is that groups like the CSIRO, the group that runs the energy market in Australia all tell us that the cheapest way we can supply power going forward is renewables. And this is one of the big flaws with Peter Dutton’s plan around nuclear. Frankly, it’s too slow – it won’t be around until the 2040s – it’s too expensive and it will put up people’s power bills. And this is why companies like Rio Tinto are moving to renewables.

DALES WHYTE: With all due respect, Senator our power bills are going through the goddam roof now and that’s probably down to renewables. I mean, we make - we export gas to China who then go and use it for their industry. We export coal to China who go and use it for their industry. So, we’re really working in a false economy. We’re sending our wonderful minerals and resources overseas but we’re going down the renewable track and costing us money in a bad economic time.

MURRAY WATT: Well, of course, we do continue to use coal and gas, and what we’ve said as a Government is that even as we bring renewables online, we are going to bring gas to back it up. Of course, the sun doesn’t shine 24 hours a day, the wind doesn’t blow 24 hours a day, and you need things like gas to be able to fill it gap when it’s needed. But, as I say, when you’ve got groups like the CSIRO, the Energy Market Operator all telling us that the cheapest way for us to provide power in the future is renewables, I think we need to listen to them. Nuclear is not the way to deliver cheaper power. It’s actually a guaranteed way to lift power prices in the future. And, you know, I don’t think I’ve met anyone in Central Queensland who wants higher prices.

DALES WHYTE: No, I agree with you on that. Nobody wants higher prices. I’ve got to say, I don’t think we’re doing it the right way now, and that’s kind of leading into my next question: you are the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. I spent the last four years as a business adviser for the New South Wales government, and small business has never been so confused and so nervous and upset about potential regulations coming in to upset the business. Same is happening in Capricornia, according to the Capricornia Chamber of Commerce. Nerves are really there and when it comes to the wage theft legislation. People are not employing people because it’s too hard to work out what awards are which, and they’re facing fines and jail time. Can you clarify that?

MURRAY WATT: Sure, and I can sort of say categorically to your listeners that no small business who attempts to do the right thing by paying their staff will be facing jail time. What this is about is dealing with some of the situations we’ve seen in recent years. You might remember the 7-Eleven scandal a few years ago –

DALES WHYTE: Yes, I do very well.

MURRAY WATT: – where they were deliberately and knowingly underpaying their staff. And traditionally what employees have been able to do in that situation is effectively sue their employer in the courts to recover the underpayments. But I guess our principle is that, you know, if an employee was to steal from their boss, they would rightly face theft charges. But at the moment the law didn’t provide for employers who deliberately and knowingly steal from their employees, it didn’t provide the same kind of criminal sanctions. And from January the 1st we now have changed the law in Australia so that employers who deliberately and knowingly steal their employees’ wages by underpaying them, then they do face criminal penalties.

DALES WHYTE: But who’s the arbitrator? Who’s the arbitrator to decide: yep, that was deliberate, that wasn’t?

MURRAY WATT: That would be determined by a court. Just as courts determine right now whether someone deliberately stole something from someone or an arson case, whether it was deliberate or any other kind of criminal charge. But, importantly on the small business front, we worked really closely with small business organisations to develop a code that small businesses can use, and if they essentially go in line with that then they don’t have to fear criminal prosecution. And what that code basically says, it takes people through what they need to do to establish what pay rates they should be paying their workers. And it also gives them advice about what to do if they’ve accidentally underpaid someone. So provided someone has done those kinds of things, then they won’t be facing criminal charges. This is really about catching people –

DALES WHYTE: Should you remain in Government, would you make it easier for people to understand what is happening when it comes to literally trying to navigate the Fair Work website? Because it’s not that helpful and a couple of times when I’ve called, particularly helping with clients who were trying to get the right award for their employees, the Fair Work person has said to me, “Well, we can only give you an indicator, but we may be wrong, we may be right. You can’t go by what we say.”

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, look, I think we can always do better in terms of explaining the laws, whether it be workplace laws or any other kind of laws. We have as a Government provided a substantial amount of funding to the Fair Work Ombudsman to provide that kind of information. We’ve also funded a range of business groups like the Council of Small Business Organisations to provide information to small businesses in language that they understand. But look, I acknowledge that we can always do more, and happy to take that on board. I think what this is all about in the end, Dales, is that we did say as a Government when we were elected last time that we needed to get wages moving again. We’d had 10 years of Coalition Government, and they used to say that they were deliberately keeping wages low as part of their economic policy. It’s one of the reasons people are struggling now, is that wages were held down for so long. And because of the changes we’ve made to the laws, which were all voted against by Peter Dutton and the Opposition, that those changes have now come into force and we’re seeing wages now growing in Australia above inflation for the first time in years. And, you know, I don’t want to pretend that things are perfect for people; things are still really tough. But imagine how much tougher they’d be if wages hadn’t been rising and making sure that employers understand they’ve got a responsibility to pay people properly then that’s a really important thing in terms of wages as well.

DALES WHYTE: I can quote a company – and I’m going to have to quote New South Wales because I had access to this company’s details.

MURRAY WATT: Sure.

DALES WHYTE: They were paying a dishwasher 50 bucks an hour because it was so hard to get people to work in that role. But during double time, which obviously is public holidays and so forth, they’re paying him $150 an hour.

MURRAY WATT: Look, I obviously am not aware of that case. What I probably would say is that it doesn’t sound like they were paying that amount of money because the law was requiring them to pay $50 an hour ­–

DALES WHYTE: No, but it –

MURRAY WATT: – that’s what was required to get someone to do the job.

DALES WHYTE: It was required to get somebody to do the job. But when you brought in the aspect of having to work on weekends and having everything like that, it almost drove them bankrupt, and they had to close on weekends.

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, look, I understand that that does put an added pressure and added cost pressure on businesses. But equally, I think if we are going to be asking people to work public holidays, you know, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day, weekends when the rest of us have an opportunity to hang out with their family, maybe go away for the weekend, I think people do deserve extra compensation for that –

DALES WHYTE: But then on the other side of that, Senator, we’re looking at people complaining, “There’s no restaurants open, there’s nowhere to have a cup of coffee” because it’s too expensive to keep people on.

MURRAY WATT: Well, I’ve got to say, that’s not my experience in Rocky. I’ve been in Rocky on weekends, I’ve been there after hours, and I’ve generally been able to find somewhere to eat or somewhere to have a coffee. And, again, I think it is important that people be paid fairly, and they be recognised for giving up family time, giving up their opportunities to play sport because they’re working. So, you know, that might be something we just have to agree to disagree on.

DALES WHYTE: No, that’s fine, Senator.

MURRAY WATT: Yeah.

DALES WHYTE: And, I must admit, I agree with you on one thing, and one thing well and truly is that people deserve to be paid properly.

MURRAY WATT: Absolutely.

DALES WHYTE: But we need small businesses to be able to employ them because that’s the biggest employer in Australia.

MURRAY WATT: For sure. And I should make the point as well that in passing all of our workplace laws we did acknowledge that small businesses needed extra protection and they don’t have the benefit of big HR, you know, advisers and things like that. So many of the laws that we’ve introduced have had delayed introduction for small businesses to give people time to cope. For things like the right to disconnect, which we introduced last year, meaning that people aren’t forced to respond to their employer after hours, there’s a 12‑month wait on that for small businesses.

DALES WHYTE: Yep.

MURRAY WATT: There’s other laws around casuals which don’t yet apply to small businesses. So, we are trying to acknowledge the needs of small businesses while at the same time making sure we do get wages rising in this country again.

DALES WHYTE: I’m a great advocate for small business. I’ve owned five myself and I’ve worked with them for many years, and yeah; I thank you very much for your time today, Senator Watt. And I appreciate you making the time to talk to us while you’re up here.

MURRAY WATT: No problem, Dales. Great to talk to you, mate.

DALES WHYTE: Thank you very much, Senator Murray Watt. And, yeah, there you’ve got some of the questions answered.