Interview with Graeme Goodings - 5AA mornings

GRAEME GOODINGS, HOST: Moving on to another subject. Well, good news for thousands of Mosaic workers. The Albanese Government is granting early access to the Fair Entitlements Guarantee for workers impacted by the closure of the clothing retailer Mosaic Brands Group. Now, you might say Mosaic Brands, that doesn't mean anything to me. Well, you'd be familiar with some of the brand names, including Millers, Noni B, Rivers, Katie's, Autograph, Crossroads, and a number of others. Mosaic operates through 666 physical stores and an online business. And joining me now in the studio is the Minister for a Employment and Workplace Relations, Murray Watt. Minister, good morning to you. Before telling us about the Mosaic deal, tell us how the Fair Entitlement scheme works.
 
MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: G'day, Graeme. Great to be with you here in the studio. So, the Fair Entitlements Guarantee is a system run by the Federal Government which basically steps in as a last resort to ensure that workers who lose their entitlements in a corporate collapse at least recoup some of those entitlements. Unfortunately, when we do see big companies go under, sometimes the workers are still owed pay, are owed annual leave, are owed redundancy pay, and because of the financial state of the company, those entitlements are not always able to be met out of company funds. So, in that situation, we have a federal safety net, if you like, which can step in and pay up to 13 weeks worth of unpaid wages, unpaid leave, unpaid redundancy, so that at least people get some of the entitlements that they're owed as they try to rebuild their lives.
 
GRAEME GOODINGS: So, why have you decided to allow early access to the Mosaic Group?
 
MURRAY WATT: Yeah, so there is ability under the legislation for the Minister of the day to fast track the entitlements and I have decided to do that in this case. The Mosaic Group has a lot of big brands that people would know, Millers, Rivers, Katie's, all sorts of fashion brands, particularly aimed at older women or middle aged women. And many of the workers in that industry and in those stores are middle aged women themselves with family responsibilities who've been owed many thousands of dollars. Many of them work part time and they're not highly paid people. So, we do have the ability under the legislation to fast track access to that scheme in sort of exceptional circumstances. And I do think this is an exceptional circumstance. There's nearly 3,000 workers involved spread right across the country, including a few hundred here in South Australia. They're not well paid people. They're owed lots of money and I don't want to see them have to wait many, many, many months, perhaps until the end of the year before they have to scrounge for some of entitlements through the liquidation process.
 
GRAEME GOODINGS: What specific entitlements will they be able to get?
 
MURRAY WATT: Yeah, so basically the way the scheme works is that you can get up to 13 weeks pay funded by the government to cover things like unpaid wages, unpaid redundancy funds. You know, if this had been a normal situation where a company was reducing its workforce and making their staff redundant, then people would get - it might be one week per year of service or two weeks per year of service. But of course, in this situation where the company's gone broke, and had to close down most of its stores, people aren't getting those funds that they normally would. We do have the ability as the government to recoup whatever we pay out under this scheme through the liquidation process, and we'll be certainly trying to do that here because we obviously think that the company should bear these costs rather than the taxpayer. But what we want to do in the meantime is make sure that these workers do have some money in their pockets as they go about trying to find new jobs, because they've still got bills to pay and mortgages to pay as well.
 
GRAEME GOODINGS: Any idea how much money the government will have to put into this?
 
MURRAY WATT: From what we understand, there's about $25 million all up that's owed to these workers. And as I say, it's nearly 3,000 workers. I think one of the other reasons why I've stepped in here is that many of the workers involved are very long serving staff. They've been very loyal to the company and now they're at risk of losing these entitlements through no fault of their own, through the company collapsing. Now, I don't know that it will necessarily end up being $25 million that's paid out, because as I say, there's a maximum of 13 weeks worth of pay that people can qualify for. It's quite possible that some of these people are owed even more than that. So, you know, it's not as if this will solve every problem for these workers. But I think when people go through these troubled times, it's important that governments stand by them.
 
GRAEME GOODINGS: Granting this early access or access, is this going to create a precedent? Will this happen with other companies?

MURRAY WATT: It doesn't happen in every situation. The only other time that I can remember, at least, that I've stepped in like this as the Minister, is the recent collapse we saw of the Rex Airlines Group as well. I did approve the early access to the FEG scheme for Rex workers who lost their jobs as well. And again, I felt that was an exceptional circumstance because, as you will have seen, our government has stepped in and provided financial support to keep Rex flying. And what that has meant is that the liquidation of that company has been delayed and it may actually never happen. Now, as I say, what would normally happen in that situation is that these workers who lost their jobs at Rex would have to be waiting forever for that liquidation to occur. Meanwhile, they've still got bills to pay. So, it's those sorts of exceptional circumstances. In Rex, it's partly because the government has kept the company alive, in this situation we're talking about a large number of workers owed lots of money, you know, middle aged workers with family responsibilities. So, it certainly won't be happening in every situation, but I think every now and then there's an exceptional one.
 
GRAEME GOODINGS: How long will the Mosaic workers have to wait before they get some money? 
 
MURRAY WATT: So, ordinarily under this scheme it can take sort of three to four months for people to get these entitlements through the scheme. But we're obviously going to try and process the applications as quickly as possible. And I'd be encouraging any of the workers who've lost their jobs through the Mosaic Group to get their applications in as quickly as possible. There have been times that we've been able to turn it around within days, so we'll be working as quickly as we can. But even if it does end up taking that long, that's a huge amount shorter than what the time these people would need to wait if they were waiting for the liquidation process.
 
GRAEME GOODINGS: Now, Minister, on another issue, while we've got you here in the studio, the US President has confirmed he's going to discuss AUKUS with the British Prime Minister. But there was a little bit of confusion when he was asked about AUKUS. He didn't sort of understand what it was all about. Does that concern you at all?
 
MURRAY WATT: Oh, not really, Graeme. I think I did see that overnight. And look, I think we can all understand the President of the United States has a lot on his plate, whoever that might be. And I don't know about you, but sometimes I don't remember acronyms either. There's a lot of them that get thrown away in government circles. But you would have seen, you know, when it was clarified for him that it was about the defence deal with the UK and Australia, he immediately was supportive of it, said that he was going to be talking about it, and talked about the strength of the relationship between the US and Australia. I think that's really encouraging to hear from the Prime Minister, especially given some of the tariff discussions we've been having with them as well.
 
GRAEME GOODINGS: Minister, thanks for coming in today. Murray Watt, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations.

Well, the SDA, South Australia's largest union, has been instrumental in getting the Mosaic workers benefits fast tracked. Josh Peak is the SDA's State Secretary. Josh, how do you react to the government's decision?
 
JOSH PEAK, SDA SA & NT STATE SECRETARY: Oh, look, we're particularly relieved. We've been really worried about how long it would take for many of our members to receive their entitlements through this administration and now liquidation process. And we've got to remember the type of workers that are working at Mosaic Group, many of them, most of them, are women who have been working for this business for such a long time, and it's really been an awful time for them to go through this process as the company has begun to wind down. So, it's a massive relief that they're not going to be subject to a difficult liquidation process and they'll receive their money, hopefully, within a pretty short time frame.
 
GRAEME GOODINGS: So, how much or what are they entitled to?
 
JOSH PEAK: Well, the business is being wound up, so it's sort of subject to a number of different components. Firstly, it's any unpaid entitlements at the moment of the administration, which was last year. Then it's the redundancy that should come along with the closure. There's been many workers that have been made redundant during the administration period, and they haven't received any redundancy money over the last six months as workers that were made redundant but didn't receive money previously as well. And so it really goes to accrued annual leave, accrued sick leave, and then the redundancy for the fact that they're losing their jobs as a result of this business closing.
 
GRAEME GOODINGS: Now, you've been pressing for some time for the Mosaic workers to be treated as a special case.
 
JOSH PEAK: We have, and there's a couple of reasons for that. One of the things, and this is something that happens in many unfortunate liquidation processes, is it's been revealed that the business used an employing entity that had no assets. And so that means that it was going to be a complicated process in the way in which we need to achieve the entitlements for those workers, because we would have to ensure the entire business was grouped together. That would mean that the liquidation and the workers receiving their entitlements may take some time. And what we've been saying is it's not fair and reasonable for this group of workers to have to wait and go through that kind of process. And we're thrilled that the government has stepped in here and said they're going to go through the process for the workers. They're going to make special arrangements to ensure that workers can access their entitlements for the Fair Entitlement Guarantee scheme. They will be able to do that as soon as possible and then the government will take up the case to try to secure as much of that money back for the taxpayers as they possibly can.
 
GRAEME GOODINGS: Josh Peak, the SDA State Secretary, on the benefits gained by the Mosaic workers who are out of a job, a lot of them working at or for Millers, Noni B, Rivers, Katie's, Autograph and Crossroads. And the government has stepped in with the Fair Entitlements Guarantee granting them, I think there's almost 3,000 workers, who will now be getting some benefit sooner than they would have expected.