Press conference, Brisbane

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

GRAHAME KELLY, MINING AND ENERGY UNION GENERAL SECRETARY: Look, thanks everyone, for coming along. We just wanted to – we, as in MEU, Mining and Energy Union – wanted to talk to you about same job, same pay and what that means to our members.

Tomorrow is when it starts to get paid, so Friday. Friday, the 1st of November workers around the country will start to get a pay rise. For our members, for our application, that’s $120 million a year increase in wages, which is a great outcome for these workers. Our union has been fighting long and hard for this, and it’s because of the Albanese Labor Government’s position to change the law, to close the loophole, it’s made all the difference to us. And we really, really appreciate it.

We’ve got currently 46 applications at 24 mine sites across the country and we’re really working hard to make sure that people from tomorrow get the right amount of money that they should have always got. Our challenge, of course, is that there are some companies that are just putting it on standby. They’re taking their time, they’re challenging it, just to push out the time that it takes for these workers to get a pay rise, and we think they should just get out of the way.

MURRAY WATT, MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: Well, thanks very much, Grahame. It’s an absolute pleasure to join you, your members and my fantastic colleagues Senator Nita Green from Cairns and Dan Repacholi, the very big bloke standing behind me, a former coal miner, who’s one of our terrific colleagues in federal parliament right now and knows very well from personal experience what these members and these miners have been going through on these issues.

As Grahame has said, tomorrow is a really important day. It’s an important day for coal mine workers around the country. It’s also a really important day for thousands of aviation workers, meat processing workers, warehousing workers as well, where finally people who are doing the same job will be able to receive the same pay. Now, from tomorrow we will see a number of orders take effect that have been granted by the Fair Work Commission which level the playing field for labour hire works and the permanent workers they work alongside.

Now, to give you a practical example of what this means, two of the people who are standing with us here today are mine workers from Central Queensland at exactly the same mine who do exactly the same work, but Simon, the permanent worker, gets paid $30,000 a year more than Ron, the labour hire worker who does exactly the same work as Simon, works exactly the same rosters, but is discriminated against because he’s classified as a labour hire casual. And the good news is that for people like Ron and the thousands of other workers like him in labour hire around the country, from tomorrow that changes. The whole point of the same job, same pay laws that the Albanese Labor Government introduced was to remove the financial incentive for big employers – whether they be coal mining companies, Qantas, aviation firms and others – remove the financial incentive for them to use labour hire as a loophole to undercut the wages they’ve agreed with their own permanent staff. So, from tomorrow we will see labour hire employees who’ve got these orders from the Fair Work Commission in some cases receive pay rises of about $20,000 a year.

Now, what we’ve been saying is that everyone in Australia right now knows that cost of living pressures is the biggest issue that’s facing people. And while we as a government will continue to deliver things like the tax cuts that are fairer for middle-income workers, the cheaper medicines, the cheaper child care, the energy bill relief, what we’re also doing is making sure that working people in Australia are having wages that are rising again. We saw 10 years under the Coalition of them deliberately keeping wages low and putting people further behind and letting employers exploit labour hire loopholes and all sorts of other loopholes. Under the Albanese Government we’ve closed that loophole, wages are moving again, which is really important for people to be able to survive in a cost of living pressure time.

The other thing I was going to say on that is that this will be a real issue heading into the next federal election because we’ve already seen Peter Dutton and the Coalition say that if they are elected, they will review Labor’s same job, same pay laws. And I think we all know that when you have Liberal Party politicians saying they’re going to review workplace laws, it means one thing only – and that is that wages are going to be cut. They’ve also committed to cut a whole range of other rights – casuals’ rights, right to disconnect. They’ve talked about expanding unfair dismissals. So, these sorts of things will be front and centre in the next election campaign.

Before I hand over to Dan Repacholi I might just address one other matter I know that is getting a lot of attention today – and we can come back to it in questions if you’d like to – and that is the exploding cigar that has just blown up in Peter Dutton’s face. All week we’ve seen Peter Dutton, Bridget McKenzie and other members of the Federal Coalition go after the Prime Minister about upgrades he received from Qantas and which were fully declared in his register of interest. They’ve made all sorts of demands of the Prime Minister this week, and that cigar that they’ve been chomping on all week has just blown up in their face. What we’ve seen overnight is that the Shadow Transport Minister, Bridget McKenzie, who’s been leading the charge against the Prime Minister, has now admitted that she’s got to check for herself what upgrades she’s received and whether she’s declared them to the parliament. They’ve been having a crack at the Prime Minister. He has disclosed every single one of those flights, and having checked the records it’s now clear that he never made any request of anyone in Qantas for an upgrade despite all of the accusations the opposition has been making.

So, the very person leading the charge, it would appear has now potentially failed to disclose her own upgrades in a way that she’s required to in the Parliament. So, there are serious questions for Bridget McKenzie in this. But the person for whom there are the most serious questions is Peter Dutton. He is the leader of the Federal Liberal Party. He wants to be the Prime Minister of Australia, and all week he’s been calling on the Prime Minister to do all sorts of things about this story. Well, now the pressure is on him. Now he’s got to explain what he’s going to do about his Shadow Transport Minister, who appears to not have declared upgrades that she has received and who earlier this week lied when she was asked about whether she’d received an upgrade.

But it’s got worse for Peter Dutton. What he’s now admitted to only in the last hour is that as Leader of the Opposition not only did he take a free flight offered by Gina Rinehart, the mining billionaire, but that his office asked for that free flight. He’s been making all sorts of accusations all week about the Prime Minister which have turned out to not be true, about asking for upgrades. Peter Dutton himself has admitted that his office asked Gina Rinehart for a free ride on her personal jet to get him from one place to the next. Now, I think we’re all entitled to know, what did Peter Dutton and Gina Rinehart talk about? Was it about nuclear power and Gina Rinehart’s love for nuclear power? Was it her views about workplace relations where she’s talked about the low wages that African workers get paid? Was she talking about cutting company taxes? Are they the kind of things that Peter Dutton has been talking about with Gina Rinehart when he’s been on her personal private jet requested by his office? These are the questions that Peter Dutton has got to answer now that the cigar has blown up in this face.

And speaking of nuclear power, I’ll hand over to Dan Repacholi who, of course, is leading a House of Representatives inquiry into this issue right now.

DAN REPACHOLI, MEMBER FOR HUNTER: Thank you, Murray. And as a proud former coal miner, same job, same pay shouldn’t be argued about in Canberra. This is really important to myself and to the hardworking people in the pits in the Hunter and all over Australia. Same job, same pay is so important to us. I used to work at Mount Thorley Warkworth when I was working there with Rio Tinto. There was five of us in a car crew. I used to travel to work with Yatesey, Gary, Adam and Benny. Three of us were full-time employees with Rio Tinto getting paid pretty well for what we did. The other two were labour hire, and unfortunately for those two labour hire people they did the exact same hours we did, the exact same rosters – everything was exactly the same. Except, guess what? Their pay. They got paid $30,000 less than us. That is a disgrace. Not only did the pay make an issue, they also didn’t get sickies, they didn’t get holidays, and they also got sent home when it rained. And that’s why same job, same pay is so important. Important for the hardworking people in the mining industry and also all the other industries that Murray just spoke about.

So, this is really important for us. And I can’t wait to see this come into effect tomorrow and those hardworking people in all those different industries actually get to be able to go and buy houses, be able to go and buy cars because of the extra money that they’re going to get in their pocket every week instead of going into the boss’s pocket because they’ve been trying to rip them off for decades. So, thank you to everyone who’s been involved in that.

And whilst I’m here and I have the mic, I’d like to talk about how crucial our energy sector is. And I’ll be honest with Aussies all around Australia, and I’ll always be honest – last week we heard from experts in the field – not the bullshit that’s Peter Dutton’s been putting out to everyone and all the Aussies around the place – that nuclear will be done in this very small period of time that he’s talking about. Experts in the energy sector have told us that this will take up to eight to 10 years just to get the regulatory process done before they can even start to build a nuclear power station.

So that throws their timeline into tatters. And Peter Dutton, I’m calling out on you right now to call out and to speak to the Australian public and be truthful with them and tell them how long it’s actually going to take. Tell them how much it’s going to cost and tell them what’s going to happen in the meantime as coal-fired power stations begin to come offline, as we know they’re going to in around 2035. Ninety per cent will be offline by then. What’s actually going to happen to those hardworking individuals between 2035 and 2045 when you think that they can just come back into the market? This is what we want to hear. This is what the Australian people want to hear. And Australians deserve better. And that’s why we’re having this inquiry into nuclear energy to see if it fits into our market, because you won’t give the details that Australians need, so we’re going to go and chase them instead. Thank you, all.

MURRAY WATT: Thanks, Dan. We’re happy to take questions, and we do have a couple of workers who are benefitting from this, if you’d like to have a chat with them as well.

JOURNALIST: Employers are pretty critical of the scale that’s going to be used, some of them. Just because, you know, it will remove their ability to scale up their workforce to meet demands. Do you have anything to say about those concerns?

MURRAY WATT: Well, Grahame might like to comment on this as well, but I’m aware of one major mining company – being BHP – that has objected to what the government has done and is currently part of a case that the Mining and Energy Union are bringing in the Fair Work Commission. But what we’ve also seen from a number of other mining companies and meat processors and Qantas and other as well is that they understand the law has changed and that they can no longer get away with the labour hire loophole that they’ve been exploiting for years.
 
So, BHP have got to answer for themselves about why they’re not prepared to do what Qantas has done, what Kmart has done, what a number of other mining companies have done to stop using labour hire and other loopholes as a way of undercutting the pay that they’ve negotiated with their own employees.

JOURNALIST: Do you maintain that the use of the previously loophole is limited, which means that the scale could possibly be limited as well?

MURRAY WATT: When you’re talking about the scale, I mean, I’m not exactly sure what you mean about the range of industries that it could apply to?

JOURNALIST: Yeah.

MURRAY WATT: So, as I say, I think – you know, and fair credit to the Mining and Energy Union who really led the charge for this campaign and for these changes to the law, because we have seen across the mining industry across the country the widespread use of labour hire to undercut agreements that were negotiated by big mining companies. So, the Mining and Energy Union have been at the forefront, but it’s not just this industry and it’s not just this union that have been taking it on. I think what we’re learning as this law rolls out is exactly how widespread labour hire has become as a way of cutting pay. Now, as a government we’ve recognised that there is a place for labour hire. There’s a place for contract work, especially if you’re talking about surge workforces. But the idea that someone can be employed on the same roster year after year wearing the same uniform as the person next to them doing the same work and be paid $30,000 less, that is wrong and that’s why we’ve changed the law.

JOURNALIST: And for the employers that do have concerns, how do they strike the right balance between scaling up their workforce because of demand but also adhering to the changes as well?

MURRAY WATT: Yeah, well, again, others might want to add to this, but as I say, we’ve seen a number of other mining companies already agree to make these changes, and they’re still operating right now. And many of the things that BHP say that they get out of the current arrangements are things that they can get out of negotiating with the union, just as they’ve been able to do with the rest of their workforce. So, I don’t think that this is the beginning of the end for mining in Australia, which is what some people are calling about. You might remember when we made these changes Peter Dutton said and Michaelia Cash said they were going to close down Australia. Well, have a look out the window. Australia is pretty open. Mining is still happening. It’s creating a lot of wealth for our country, and it’s creating good jobs for Australians as well, and they deserve to be paid fairly. Do you want to add to that, Grahame?

GRAHAME KELLY: You should understand - I’m a coal miner, I used to work at the same pit that Dan used to work at. And, look, the reality is there are so many people. We’ve got pits in Queensland which, for the first time in a decade, are now employing permanent mine workers. For they’ve done ever since they could do the loophole they’ve had – one mine in Queensland has had 600 permanents. It’s now got 450 permanents. It has 1700 labour hire workers doing exactly the same thing on the job. So, when you talk about surge, that’s not a surge; that’s replacing a workforce with an undercut workforce. Those people will get $30,000 extra if that company gets out of the way. But, more importantly is they’re now employing permanently – first time in a decade. First time. We’ve also got other companies that are smaller than the big couple where they’re actually agreeing with the union and that, that they can actually manage their mine – as they did when I was a coal miner – they can manage their mine with a permanent workforce. You rarely get a surge in the coal industry. It’s all about getting everything out every time, and that’s what they do all the time. You don’t need this nonsense of labour hire just to undercut workers.

NITA GREEN, SENATOR FOR QUEENSLAND: Can I add to that. My name’s Nita, I’m a Senator for Queensland and I’ve had a lot of experience over the last couple of years dealing with OS Services, which is one of the examples that are given and that the union has actually fought very hard against. And that was never an attempt to scale up. It was an attempt to use the loophole. They created two companies with very suspicious names so that no-one would know what was going on. They held negotiations in Western Australia to sign up agreements, and then they applied those agreements to mines in Queensland, to workers that never had a chance to negotiate those terms and conditions. And the sole purpose of that was to undermine the conditions of workers in Queensland that had been hard fought for many years. And so, when it comes to BHP and OS Services, this is not a matter of scaling up and this is not a matter of trying to maintain some sort of workforce normality. They have tried to use this loophole, and our government under Labor has said that we will put a stop to that now. And we’re finally backing the workers. We have had over many years workers in regional Queensland specifically talk to us about labour hire and ask us to deliver same job, same pay. They were promised it by the Liberals but they never delivered it. And finally, under an Albanese Labor Government we have same job, same pay here in Queensland. And when it comes to BHP, they need to get on board with this because we know that this has been a deliberate attempt by them to undermine the working conditions of people in regional Queensland. And our community will not stand for that. Thank you.

MURRAY WATT: Thanks. Any other questions before you hear from the workers? Okay, Claire do you want to go first?

CLARE BAILEY: I’m current lucky enough to be employed permanently on a site in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales. And I’ve worked hard and I’ve seen the ugly and all of it. I’ve worked for the company that was previously mentioned for five years – seven years total when I was a trainee, and then I spent five years as a contractor under exactly that. I was doing the same job, I was working the same hours, the same rosters as everyone else. They gave everyone a sheet of paper that all had our rosters on it – permanent contractors, no matter what. And I was receiving significantly less. I was on about $90,000 a year and the others were on 150. So, it was even more significant back then. Made worse by the fact that we didn’t have any annual leave or any sick leave. So over time it has improved, but now we can improve it even better by getting people on the same money. So not just the same entitlements but the same money. So, like Dan spoke about, I was also sent home if it rained or told not to come into work if it rained. And then that meant a lot of detriment to people’s wages over time. And the pit I’m at now has just approved permanent jobs, so instead of going to keeping contractors and giving them the same money, they’ve actually agreed to give everyone permanent shifts. So that’s even a bigger win than what we went for. So we couldn’t be more happy than we are about that. And that means that that money gets spent in communities and not going into the big guys’ pockets, so that’s a good win for everyone.

MURRAY WATT: Thanks, Clare. Tania.

TANIA HENSHALL: Hi, I’m Tania Henshall. I currently work at Coppabella as labour hire. This same job, same pay is absolutely amazing for me. It means that I am valued, that my work is recognised. I do the same shifts, I do the same jobs, but what people forget is I also face the same level of risk. I’m at harm exactly in the same way as everybody else is. If I do my job safely, why shouldn’t I be paid the same as somebody else? This money means that I can support my family, we can go on and do education that they want to do. It means that I have an equal right to spend the money in the community that supports me and that I live in. It's an amazing thing. I’m so proud the MEU asked me to put my hand up and support this. And we’re waiting for the orders to be approved for Coppabella, but they’re going to be approved, and I am going to get the money that I deem I’m worth and that everybody else deems I’m worth too.

GRAHAME KELLY: How much is it, Tania?

TANIA HENSHALL: It would roughly be about $26,000 a year. And that is life changing when you’re labour hire and you’re uncertain. This is such a big buffer that will make such a big difference. So thank you to the government for supporting this. Thank you to the MEU, and thank you to the MEU members that helped support me to get this application through. It’s amazing.