Interview with Sally Sara- ABC RN Breakfast
| SALLY SARA, HOST: The Federal Government is weighing in as some of Australia's largest retailers, including the supermarket giants, push to scrap penalty rates for some workers. The bid by the Australian Retailers’ Association to vary the General Retail Industry Award is currently before the Fair Work Commission with the backing of Coles and Woolworths, as well as chains such as Kmart, 7-Eleven and the popular beauty retailer Mecca. The Government will lodge a submission with the Fair Work Commission today opposing the application, which would relax rules on rostering and breaks, but also end penalty rates for workers earning more than $67,000 a year. Murray Watt is the Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and joins me now. Minister, welcome back to Radio National Breakfast. MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: G'day, Sally. Good to be with you. SALLY SARA: It's unusual for the government to step in. It doesn't jump in in all cases. Why have you decided to step in here and what's the Government arguing in this case? MURRAY WATT: You're right, Sally, it is an unusual move for a Federal Minister to intervene in this type of case, which involves varying the terms of an award. But you will have seen that the Albanese Government has worked incredibly hard over the last three years to try to get wages moving again after we saw 10 years of the Coalition deliberately keeping them low. We've changed our laws to enable more bargaining, lift pay rises, we've supported minimum pay increases and you may have seen yesterday we got new figures through that showed that the average full-time worker in Australia is now earning $206 a week more than they were under the Coalition. So we're hardly going to stand by and let the big retailers like Woolies, Coles and other representatives of big business try to cut penalty rates and other conditions like overtime, meal breaks and things like that without putting up a fight. We want to see wages grow in this country, not go backwards. And we're prepared to step in and try to protect penalty rates and those other conditions. SALLY SARA: Minister, do you accept that there is a need to modernise and simplify the Retail Award? The Fair Work Commission has said that it's the award that businesses find most complex and difficult to use. MURRAY WATT: I absolutely accept that the award system and this particular award can be simplified. And in fact, this case was effectively initiated by Tony Burke when he was the Industrial Relations Minister because we do want to see awards simplified. But you can simplify awards without cutting workers’ pay - that's the principle here. I mean, I think all of us recognise that weekends still matter in this country. Weekends is when we gather with our families. It's when people have their weddings it's when grand finals are scheduled, things like that. And the people who give up their weekends to feed us and clothe us should be rewarded for that, just as they should be rewarded for night work and overtime and things like that as well. You know, we need to remember that the workers we're talking about here are not highly paid people. I've seen the big business reps try to describe them as managers in stores. These are people who earn as little as $53,000 per year. They're mostly women. They rely on the award in most cases. And even with the pay rise that the retailers are talking about providing, these people would still be well below average weekly earnings, and they would have lost their penalty rates and all those other conditions. SALLY SARA: The Retailers’ Association says that their changes would allow these lower-level retail managers a choice between getting an annual salary at a fixed, higher rate or sticking with penalty rates, essentially a buyout, if you like. Is that a choice that workers should have if they can potentially earn more? MURRAY WATT: Well, we certainly don't have an issue with employers, workers and unions negotiating to trade off conditions for pay rises through the enterprise bargaining system, and that happens every day of the week. The difference here is that what the retailers are trying to do is to take these conditions out of the award - the minimum safety net that applies to people. Now, if it's done through enterprise bargaining, there's a range of extra safeguards involved. For starters, it's done collectively, rather than individual workers being picked off one by one by their boss. But also, of course, it's supervised by the Fair Work Commission, and it has to be found to deliver a ‘better off, overall’ test needs to be satisfied. That's a very different situation here where we've got big business representatives trying to strip conditions out of awards and enabling that to happen through individual discussions between an employer and a worker. I think we'd all recognise that, again, the workers we're talking about here don't have enormous bargaining power and we need to preserve those minimum conditions through our safety net and allow people to negotiate improvements of that through enterprise bargaining. SALLY SARA: You're listening to Radio National Breakfast and you're hearing from Murray Watt, the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Minister, the Australian Retailers’ Association says that this is 'opt in', but are you confident that it will be presented as a choice for workers? MURRAY WATT: Well, I think if anyone thinks that Woolies and Coles and the other big retailers are doing this to pay their workers more, well, I've got a Sydney Harbour Bridge to sell you. I think we've seen the behaviour of some of these companies over the last couple of years and I think we do need to keep a tight watch on them. As I say, there is the ability for people to negotiate these sorts of changes through enterprise bargaining in a much safer, more supervised context. But what would happen here if this change went through is that individual employers would be able to go and sign up an individual employee to this agreement without any of those protections of the Fair Work Commission and other things. Now, I think, you know, we're taking this stand today to protect penalty rates. I think what we need now is to understand where Peter Dutton and the Coalition stand on this. They've already said that if they win the next election, they'll scrap a range of the changes that we've made to workplace laws. Peter Dutton needs to tell the Australian people, will he back our submission if he wins the election, or will he line up with big business and support these pay cuts? SALLY SARA: Just very briefly, Minister, in a moment I'll be speaking to former Secretary of Treasury Ken Henry, he's given a speech this week saying that the tax system is robbing young people and future generations when it comes to the economy and the environment. Why is the Government not presenting significant tax reform at this time? MURRAY WATT: Well, look, I've got a lot of respect for Ken Henry. I think he's made an incredible contribution to our country and continues to do so. I respectfully disagree with him on this matter, though. I mean, the tax cut changes that the Albanese Government made a bit over a year ago very much assisted younger workers along with all low and middle-income earners. You'll remember that what the Coalition wanted to do was to provide very large tax cuts to people like me who earn high incomes. We changed that to deliver much better tax cuts for low and middle-income earners, including young people. But we've obviously taken a range of other steps to support young people as well. Whether it be the changes we've made to HECS indexation, HECS loans, the commitment we've made if we win the next election to waive a significant chunk of student debt, our Help to Buy scheme, the housing that we're now building, a range of other changes that we've made to help young people because we recognise it's tough for young people out there. We may have a different way of doing it than what Mr Henry is suggesting, but we are absolutely committed to helping young people in Australia get ahead. SALLY SARA: Murray Watt, thank you for your time again. MURRAY WATT: Good on you, Sally. |