Interview with James Glenday - ABC News Breakfast

JAMES GLENDAY, HOST: The Federal Government is moving to try to stop major retailers like Coles and Woolworths, from trading off penalty rates. It's urging the Fair Work Commission to reject an application from the Australian Retailers' Association as it tries to make industrial relations policy part of the coming federal election campaign. For more, let's bring in the Workplace Relations Minister, Murray Watt. Murray, lovely to have you back on the program.

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: Good to see you, James.

JAMES GLENDAY: This proposal from the retailers would allow employers to buy out penalty rates and overtime, things like that, for a 25 percent pay rise for any worker earning more than about $54,000. First of all, why are you opposed to this idea?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, well you would have seen, James, that over the last three years the Albanese Government has worked incredibly hard to get wages moving again after 10 years in a row of the Coalition deliberately keeping wages low, which of course made it harder for people to get ahead. So, we're hardly going to stand by now, when we see big business representatives - some of the biggest retailers in the country, like Coles and Woolies - try to slash the penalty rates of some of the lowest paid workers in the country. I've noticed that the retailers have tried to portray this as being about managers in their stores. We need to remember that we're talking about people who earn as little as $54,000 a year. But beyond that there's a principle here, which is that weekends matter. Weekends is when we gather with our families, when people have weddings, when we have grand finals of football matches, and the people who feed us and clothe us on weekends deserve to be rewarded for that. So we are prepared to intervene in this case to try to stop the big retailers and big business representatives from taking penalty rates, overtime, meal breaks and a range of other conditions off low‑paid workers.

JAMES GLENDAY: So I just think we need to kind of spell this out a little bit, because quite a lot of workplaces have these sorts of pay trade‑offs, but is your argument that these should be negotiated through enterprise bargaining, not award variations, and typically with people who are earning more money overall?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, that's exactly right, James. You're correct that it's not unusual at all through the enterprise bargaining system for workers, unions and employers to get together, negotiate changes, in some cases trade off conditions in return for higher pay. But what we're talking about here is an attempt by big business to change the minimum safety net, the award provisions, the safety floor that is supposed to provide minimum rates and conditions for workers. And what we're saying is that if employers want to have those sorts of changes they should negotiate with their employees as a whole rather than try to take them away from minimum conditions. And again, we're talking about low‑paid workers, there are thousands of people who would be directly affected by this. The retail award underpins the wages and conditions for around a million workers in our country, and of course there's a risk that if this changes then it could potentially flow on to other sectors that rely on penalty rates, like hospitality, healthcare, and other sectors as well.

JAMES GLENDAY: Big retailers are arguing this morning that actually some workers might want this; they're on $54,000 a year, they'd like a 25 percent pay rise so that they can lock it in, take it to the bank, literally get a mortgage. Do you not believe- you think they're going to be worse off overall?

MURRAY WATT: Yes, we do, and obviously a principle of our government is that workers' wages should not go backwards. It's why we've changed our workplace laws, to enable wages to start growing again. We saw yesterday new figures from the Bureau of Statistics which show that the average weekly wage of a full‑time worker in Australia is now $206 a week higher than it was under the Coalition because of our changes. We've supported increases to the minimum wage consistently every year we've been in office. So of course we're for pay rises, but we don't think that minimum safety net conditions like penalty rates, overtime, meal breaks allowances should be stripped away for what will end up being a fairly small pay rise for low‑paid workers. Even if these workers agreed to this individually with the 25 percent pay rise on offer, they would still be being paid significantly below average weekly earnings. So as I say, we're for wage rises, and if employers, workers and unions want to negotiate changes around hours, conditions in return for trade‑offs, that's fine, and that's allowed under the enterprise bargaining system, but it shouldn't be allowed under the award provisions.
And I guess my other question here, James, as we're approaching an election is that we need to know where Peter Dutton and the Coalition stand on this. They've already said that they'll unwind many of our changes to workplace laws if they win the next election, so I think these workers deserve to know that if Peter Dutton were to win the next election, would he back our attempt to try to stop scrapping penalty rates?

JAMES GLENDAY: I am going to jump in there - we have asked the Opposition Leader on the show multiple times in recent weeks. If he gets back to us and gives us the time and says yes, we'll put that to him.

MURRAY WATT: Well, good luck with that.

JAMES GLENDAY: Just to another issue. Some jobs figures were out yesterday, and they were pretty good, showing the economy is still doing well. However, do you think this does mean that the Reserve Bank might be one and done with an interest rate cut for quite a few months now?

MURRAY WATT: No, I don't think it necessarily has to be that way, James. Of course it's a decision for the independent Reserve Bank what they do about interest rate cuts in the future, but I think what's unusual and really encouraging about the economic data we see here in Australia is that our Government, through our responsible economic management and our changes to workplace laws, has been able to get wages up, keep unemployment low, create lots more new jobs, the most in any single parliamentary term, all while bringing down inflation - and of course we're now seeing interest rate cuts as well. I think, you know, when I did basic economics at university, we were taught that if wages went up then inflation would go up, that we needed unemployment to rise to get inflation to come down. Actually, what we've been able to achieve here in Australia is get unemployment down while getting inflation down, and that's the way we intend to keep it.

JAMES GLENDAY: No doubt living standards, all the rest of it, over this term of Parliament's going to be a big part of the electric campaign, we can look forward to that. But before I let you go, Minister, I did want to ask about foreign policy. It's outside your area of responsibility, but Donald Trump has called the Ukrainian President a dictator, he's vowing to end the war by talking with the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Is the Australian Government really going to accept any outcome where the Kremlin is effectively rewarded for invading Ukraine?

MURRAY WATT: Well, of course, we've had a very consistent position in the time that we've been in office in being very strong supporters of Ukraine and President Zelenskyy. We've provided significant financial support, one of the leading contributors to that support outside of NATO, and we remain absolutely opposed to the actions of Vladimir Putin. So, we're not‑

JAMES GLENDAY: Just sorry to interrupt, Minister, 'cause we are short on time, but if the US was to pull out and to really wind back its support for Ukraine, would Australia join other like‑minded countries, maybe like the UK and France, in continuing to support Ukraine?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I guess I'm not going to comment on those sort of hypotheticals, but you can look at our record and see that we have been consistent supporters of Ukraine, and that remains the case today.

JAMES GLENDAY: All right. Minister Murray Watt, we do appreciate your time this morning. Happy Friday.

MURRAY WATT: You too. Thanks James.