Interview with David Speers - ABC 7.30

DAVID SPEERS, HOST: Building companies, unions and government ministers came together today to discuss how to fix cultural problems in the construction sector. The CFMEU's Construction Division has already been placed into administration, with more than 40 allegations of corruption and coercion now under investigation. Murray Watt is the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. He chaired today's meeting and I spoke with him earlier. Murray Watt, welcome to the program.
 
MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: G'day, David. Good to be with you.
 
DAVID SPEERS: So in today's meeting, you've agreed on an aim to develop a blueprint within six months which will outline a pathway forward for the construction sector. Minister, isn't more urgency required?
 
MURRAY WATT: Well, David, this is obviously one of a number of actions the Government is taking to not just clean up the CFMEU construction division, but really overhaul this industry as a whole. We've now, of course, appointed the administrator who's taken charge of the union division and is progressively cleaning that up. We've also, you would have seen today, had the Fair Work Ombudsman has now commenced over 40 investigations into particular allegations of misconduct that in some cases involves union officials, in some cases, employers as well. But I guess what is apparent is that there are a range of other issues to do with this industry and its culture that need to be dealt with. I think the mere fact that we've been able to get representatives of building employers, subbies and unions together in a room today and reach agreement that something needs to change and that they're prepared to work together is a pretty big step in itself. Of course, if we can get work done even more quickly than six months, that would be great. But even just getting people to agree on what the issues will be and how we'll deal with them, I think is a good step forward.
 
DAVID SPEERS: You mentioned more than 40 cases being investigated now involving the CFMEU and employers. You have expressed some concern about the reluctance of complainants to come forward. Is that because they're being threatened, and what can you do about that?

MURRAY WATT: There's no doubt that there is a fear of retribution in this industry for people, whether they be workers, union officials or employers, to come forward with complaints about behaviour that they experience in the workplace. And that is actually one of the reasons why we've taken this action. That is the antithesis of union values, to see that kind of behaviour, the violence, the thuggery, the corruption going on. As I say, it goes beyond the union, into the employer ranks as well. We did, in the legislation that was passed by the parliament to put the CFMEU into administration, there were changes made to whistle-blower protections, but it does seem that there are still some issues there-

DAVID SPEERS: So, what do you do about that?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, so the administrator has now got an anonymous complaints mechanism - a website - completely anonymous. No one knows who is making those complaints that people can use to bring forward issues that they've been experiencing. In some cases, the administrator would be the person to deal with those. In other cases, they'd be referred to the police or other regulatory agencies. But I am willing to consider further changes to legislation or regulations to give people the kind of protection that they need, so that they have confidence to bring issues forward.

DAVID SPEERS: What might that look like further legislation to give them confidence to come forward?

MURRAY WATT: Well, as I say, the changes that we made through the legislation already were to extend existing protections in the Fair Work Act around disclosures, to also apply to disclosures that are made to the administrator. But the reality is that some of those protections only apply to certain groups - particularly employees of a union, officials of a union. So, it may be that we need to extend that to provide those protections to a broader range of people. The bottom line is that we want this process to work. It's obviously a very big step that no other government has ever taken to appoint an administrator, and I think one of the reasons we were able to get people together today is that people recognise this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to change the culture of this industry, and we want people to have confidence to come forward.

DAVID SPEERS: Murray Watt can I ask you, are you being threatened yourself in this whole process?

MURRAY WATT: Look, I'd probably rather not want to talk about my personal security, David. I mean, there's a number of us who are involved in this who've had levels of protection at different periods of time. Unfortunately, there are other people outside government who haven't had protection and are facing threats as well. And again, this just demonstrates the seriousness of the issues that we're dealing with.

DAVID SPEERS: No, fair enough. Sally McManus at the ACTU has spoken about those threats that she's been facing. Some unions aren't happy with the ACTU, or, of course, with you and what you've done in having administrators sent in. Twenty-three union officials met separately today. They are threatening to set up a rival to the ACTU. They're threatening to pour millions of dollars into supporting independent candidates at the election. What do you say to them?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, well, obviously it's a democracy, David, and people have got a right to associate with whoever they want to. I'm not too concerned about the statements of that group today. Earlier this morning, I addressed the ACTU national executive here in Melbourne, which had around 50-odd representatives of almost every single union in the country, who pretty much universally welcomed the changes that our government has made to improve the position of workers when it comes to secure work, better pay, gender equality and safer workplaces. It's a very small proportion of the union movement who were represented at the rival group today. If that's what they want to do, that's fine, but my focus going forward is not only going to be cleaning up the CFMEU, but making sure we protect the workers’ conditions that we've delivered from attacks from a future Dutton government.

DAVID SPEERS: Just a couple of other things in your portfolio. You've ruled out changing the definition of small business so that more firms can be exempt from unfair dismissal claims. This is still being reviewed, though, under a process- the government set up this review. Why are you ruling it out before you see those findings?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah so you're right, David. We did give a commitment in passing some of the IR laws that we would have a review of that definition and that review is underway. It's being conducted by the Fair Work Ombudsman. Of course, I'll listen to the recommendations that they put forward and some of them might be-

DAVID SPEERS: But you've ruled out a change already?

MURRAY WATT: Well, the point I was making is that we are not about making it easier for employers to unfairly sack their workers, and that would be one of the consequences of the change that some people are seeking.

DAVID SPEERS: So, you won't change the rule or you might?

MURRAY WATT: We will not be making it easier for employers to sack their workers. You know, right now, when Australians are dealing with cost-of-living pressures, the worst thing we could be doing is taking away people's rights and making it easier to sack them unfairly. We're a Labor government. That's not what we were about.

DAVID SPEERS: You also have a separate independent review underway into the legislation that was introduced last year, or passed last year, including the multi-employer bargaining. Will you ignore that review as well?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I'm not going to prejudge the outcome of that review, David. We'll see what people have got to say. What I would say about multi-employer bargaining is that I do think that some of the complaints being made by both the Coalition and some employer groups are pretty overblown. You would think from listening to some of the commentary that the sky is falling and the economy is crashing because of this change-

DAVID SPEERS: Well, with respect, Minister, they're concerned because Labor specifically said before the election multi-employer bargaining was not part of your plan. Then you introduced it. Then your predecessor, Tony Burke indicated it would not apply to the mining sector, now it is. You can understand what they're worried about here?

MURRAY WATT: Well, the reality is that for all the commentary about this, only one multi-employer bargaining agreement has been reached at the moment in Australia.

DAVID SPEERS: So far.

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, so far, that's in the heating and ventilation and air conditioning industry. There are a number-

DAVID SPEERS: But three miners have now been ordered - compelled - to engage in a multi-employer bargaining negotiation.

MURRAY WATT: So, the other thing I was going to say is that for unions to be able to engage in multi-employer bargaining, there are five or six different hurdles that need to be crossed under the Fair Work legislation. You know, for starters, there has to be agreement from the workers involved, there has to be comparable work across the different employers. You're right, there is one case in the mining industry where the Fair Work Commission has allowed that bargaining to begin, and that involves a case involving supervisory and managerial workers in the coal mining companies in NSW who currently don't have any base rates around redundancy and things like that. That is not the kind of general situation that we see across the mining industry. So I think that some of the claims being made are a bit fanciful.

DAVID SPEERS: Finally, the Prime Minister's property purchase grabbing a lot of headlines this week. You were one of the biggest critics of then-Prime Minister Scott Morrison when he took his family on a holiday to Hawaii - “when our country caught on fire, Scott Morrison went to Hawaii”, you said. What do you make of Anthony Albanese during a housing crisis, deciding to purchase a $4.3 million additional home?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I think that those circumstances are pretty different, David. To be a Prime Minister in the middle of, literally a natural disaster, abdicating responsibility as the national leader for that, I think is a far-cry from what we're talking about here. But look, more generally, I'm not going to criticise anyone on any side of politics for their property portfolios. I saw the ABC has published a list today of the properties owned by politicians and there's Greens members, there's Liberal members, there's Labor members who own multiple properties.

DAVID SPEERS: You wouldn't have bagged Scott Morrison if he'd done this?

MURRAY WATT: No, I do think it's really a different situation compared to a national leader, literally in the middle of one of the biggest natural disasters we've seen in decades in Australia, completely abdicate responsibility. Anthony Albanese is not abdicating responsibility for our housing crisis. He's actually putting forward solutions to deal with it.

DAVID SPEERS: OK but, Bill Shorten, as Labor leader, famously called Malcolm Turnbull “Mr Harbourside Mansion” and said he was out of touch with working Australians. Was that also unfair?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I think other people called him that as well. People like Peta Credlin-

DAVID SPEERS: That’s true, but so did Bill Shorten as the Labor leader.

MURRAY WATT: No look, as I say, I'm not going to criticise anyone for their property investments or acquisitions. I know the Prime Minister's focus is actually delivering more homes for more Australians and it'd be really good if we could have a bit of support from the Coalition or the Greens to actually make a difference for people with their housing portfolios.

DAVID SPEERS: Murray Watt, thanks for joining us tonight.