Interview with Patricia Karvelas - ABC RN

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

PATRICIA KARVELAS, HOST: The dust is beginning to settle on the Federal Government's ministerial reshuffle. Senator Murray Watt has been promoted from the agriculture portfolio to workplace relations, which is formerly the responsibility of Tony Burke who we spoke to yesterday. He is of course now the Home Affairs, Immigration and Arts Minister.

Murray Watt joins me this morning. Congratulations, welcome to the program.

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: Thanks, PK. Good to be with you in a different role.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Yeah, that's right. But still a Minister, so let's talk to you about something that has an impact very much on your portfolio. Consumer price index figures due out this morning are predicted to show inflation has ticked up slightly in the June quarter. That's what we're expecting. That could make an interest rate rise more likely later in the year. How does that sit with you?

MURRAY WATT: Well obviously we'll have to wait and see what those figures reveal later today. But you're right, most of the market expectations are that inflation is going to remain persistent despite the work that the government's been doing to bring it down. Obviously since we've come to office we've brought inflation down from over 6 per cent to under 4 per cent but we know that it's still too high and we want to keep working to bring it down. You know, the fact that we have converted Liberal deficits to Labor surpluses has really assisted, along with the cost‑of‑living relief that we've provided. But we want to keep working as hard as we can to keep bringing inflation down.

Again, I'm not going to pre‑empt what the Reserve Bank might do, but I think everyone understands that higher interest rates would be harder for Australians. So as a government what we can do is do everything possible to take that pressure off both the RBA and consumers generally.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: You'd be pretty nervous today about what the inflation figure might say.

MURRAY WATT: Oh, I think all Australians are nervous today about the inflation figure, you know, and I think that reflects that people are doing it tough at the moment. And again, that's exactly why Jim Chalmers in particular as the Treasurer, Katy Gallagher, and our whole team are doing everything we can to provide cost‑of‑living relief. Of course the tax cuts that are now starting to flow through I think are helping Australians that little bit more with paying their groceries and other bills. I know my own energy bill was drastically lower this quarter and I think all Australians are seeing that, and you know, we don't think the job is over. We've got to keep working on this to take that pressure off Australians.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Yeah, I mean, your new job now is about wages as well. Wages growth has happened under your government, but it's been eroded significantly by inflation. Doesn't that make your wages story less convincing?

MURRAY WATT: Oh, I think probably the opposite, Patricia. I think what it shows is that if we hadn't put in place those reforms led by Tony Burke to get wages moving again, to ensure they were creating more jobs than any Australian Government in history in one term, and to make people's jobs more secure, if we hadn't done those reforms people would have been struggling a lot harder. And, you know, let's remember the Coalition under Peter Dutton has not only opposed every piece of cost‑of‑living relief that we've delivered, they also opposed every piece of legislation that we delivered to increase people's wages. So imagine how much harder people would be doing it if not for that.

I mean again, I accept the point that inflation is impacting on Australians, and again that's why we're working hard to try to get that lower still. But I see one of my main roles in this portfolio, workplace relations, as bedding down those reforms to ensure that people are getting higher wages to deal with those cost‑of‑living pressures. But also as we head into the election to protect those gains from what we know the Coalition will do, which is cut wages and conditions like they always do.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Okay. I want to talk to you about the CFMEU which is going to be one of your biggest projects now, trying to clean that union up. The CFMEU has appointed Geoffrey Watson SC to basically be in charge of its probe. Can I get your reaction to that?

MURRAY WATT: Well, I do recognise the work that Zach Smith as the National Secretary of the union has done, but frankly it's not enough. This union's activity by too many of its officials has gone too far and it's got to stop. And frankly I don't think the union can be relied on to reform itself without external intervention. That's why I remain fully committed to the work that Tony Burke and the Prime Minister commenced before I took on this portfolio, to put this union into administration, to clean out the bad officials that it's got and get a union up and running again. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: So what do you make of Geoffrey Watson being appointed by the union? I mean he's a very respected figure. We've spoken to him many times on this program. People would know him. You don't ‑ you still think even though they've hired Geoffrey Watson he can't do the job because he's union appointed?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, I mean I have respect for Geoffrey Watson as a very eminent lawyer, but as I say, I think the issues within the CFMEU construction division have gone far further than anything the union can be put in charge of controlling.

You know, we need to think about the members of this union. They work on incredibly dangerous work sites, long hours in many cases, they deserve a union that's going to stand up for them, that is clean, that isn't distracted and infiltrated by bikies, and I'm afraid the government doesn't believe that the CFMEU can undertake that clean out on its own. That's why we want that administration to proceed and we're working hard on that now.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: So in this statement to union members that I've got in front of me, Zach Smith says, "Much of the media reporting in the past two weeks has been misinformed and the commentary from anti‑union actors has been opportunistic, disgraceful and targeting your wages and conditions". Is that fair?

MURRAY WATT: I think many of the media reports speak for themselves. I mean no one can deny the apparent infiltration of the construction division of the union by organised crime and by bikies. It's there for everyone to see. 

PATRICIA KARVELAS: So has media coverage really been about targeting wages and conditions of workers, which is what this guy who's in charge of the CFMEU says?

MURRAY WATT: Oh, I haven't interpreted it that way. I think the disturbing aspect of the media reports has been that apparent infiltration by organised crime. I mean I'm obviously a strong supporter of unions, I'm a Labor Party member, I've been a union member pretty much all my working life, and union exists to ensure that their members and workers get a better deal. We want to make sure in designing this approach to this issue that it's not an anti‑union exercise. You know, I'd point out that the overwhelming majority of the union movement is supportive of the government's actions in appointing administrators. And of course one of the key principles for us is to make sure that wages and conditions of members of the CFMEU construction division are protected. This is not about, you know, reining in unions for the bargaining work that they do every day and need to do to protect their members.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: M'mm.

MURRAY WATT: This is about organised crime and bikies.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Can I just understand you want the administrators to go in and to try and clean up this union. How does Geoffrey Watson work with those administrators? How do you see that interaction?

MURRAY WATT: Oh, look, I guess that would ultimately be a decision for the administrator, PK. I mean obviously Mr Watson was only appointed yesterday and we'd need to give some consideration to that. I would like to see the union cooperate with the administrators once they are appointed. I think that would be a good thing not only for the union but for its members. But that will be a decision for the union how they respond.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: And if the union challenges it, have you got legislation right now, have you told your Department, "Have the legislation ready to go"?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, in fact the very first briefing that I received in this new role within hours of being sworn in focussed on the legislation, where it was at, what further decisions needed to be made to finalise it. I had another briefing on that yesterday and gave further instructions and I'll be doing it again this morning --

PATRICIA KARVELAS: And what further instructions ‑‑

MURRAY WATT: This is my biggest priority right now --

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Can you give me a sense ‑ well, will it be ready to be tabled straight away when Parliament starts?

MURRAY WATT: That's certainly the intention. I mean what we have said is that we will support any application that's made by the General Manager of the Fair Work Commission to put some of these branches into administration. If that application's opposed and there are barriers, if it's not resolved by the time Parliament returns then we will remove those barriers by government legislation.

So we're serious about this. People have had enough. It's got to change and if it takes Government legislation to do it that's what we'll do.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: I just want to move to another issue. And if you're just tuning in this is ABC RN Breakfast. It's Wednesday morning and I'm speaking to the new Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt who has been sworn in over the weekend. Well actually Monday, you were announced on Sunday.

Let's just talk about Rex. We're talking about employment here, 2,000 jobs on the line. What are you prepared to do? The TWU is calling on the Federal Government to look at an equity stake to protect as many jobs as possible and protect entitlements. Is that something you're willing to do?

MURRAY WATT: Obviously the administration has only occurred overnight so I don't want to pre‑empt any decisions that the administrator might make, but obviously my colleague Catherine King has been in close contact through her Department with the airline and now will be with the administrators as well.

Can I just say, I recognise this is a really terrible day for Rex workers and for regional Australia. You know, in my previous role in agriculture I spent a lot of time in the regions, I've used Rex services. In a former life I actually was an industrial lawyer recovering entitlements for workers in companies that had gone belly up. It's a really horrible thing for people to go through.

In terms of equity stakes or other financial government support, we'll make those decisions once the situation becomes clearer through the administrator.

But I might just mention within my Department there's a couple of roles we could potentially end up playing to support workers. You're probably aware of a financial entitlements guarantee scheme run by the Federal Government. This would only be activated if the company is unable to repay entitlements to any workers who are retrenched, and let's hope it may not get to that. But also our Department would be providing employment support to workers who do lose their job to ensure that they can get back into work as quickly as possible.

So I was actually briefed by my Department about this earlier this morning and I've been in contact with Catherine King to make sure that we're working together on this as well. The Government is really dedicated towards hoping to make sure that this airline has a future, but also to ensure the workers are protected.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: It needs more than hope though, right? It needs a government guarantee.

MURRAY WATT: Well, again, we will consider all those options once the situation becomes clearer and we get some advice from the administrator. But, you know, I think what I can say to the workers is that they do have a government that's committed to supporting them and what I can say to regional Australia is they have a government that gets the importance of regional aviation. We'll be doing more than hope, we'll be acting to do everything we can to ensure that those services remain in place.

PATRICIA KARVELAS: Well, Minister, congratulations again. I look forward to many conversations.

MURRAY WATT: You too, Patricia, thank you.