Sky News Sunday Agenda with Andrew Clennell

E&OE

SUBJECTS: RBA, ALBANESE GOVERNMENT'S COST OF LIVING RELIEF, FIGHTING INFLATION, PAY RISE FOR CHILD CARE WORKERS, CFMEU LEGISLATION, BALANCED APPOINTMENTS TO THE FWC, AUKUS, MAX CHANDLER-MATHER AND THE GREENS BLOCKING NEW HOUSING

ANDREW CLENNELL: Joining me live is the Employment and Workplace Relations Minister, Murray Watt. Murray Watt, thank you for your time, and let me start by asking about this battle, it seems, between government policy and the aims of the Reserve Bank in bringing down inflation. Do you accept what the Reserve Bank Governor and officials appear to be saying, that perhaps federal and state government spending is not doing all it can to help tame this inflation beast and get us an interest cut sooner?
 
MURRAY WATT: Good morning, Andrew.  Good to be with you. Well, I think even the clip that you played of Michele Bullock, the Reserve Bank Governor, acknowledged that governments have a job to do, which is to provide services, to provide infrastructure in addition taking serious action to keep inflation coming down, and that's exactly what we're doing. You will have seen separate comments from Michele Bullock where she has acknowledged that the government's work in turning Liberal deficits into Labor surpluses and also providing significant cost‑of‑living relief while taking pressure off inflation is actually helping with this fight against inflation. So I think the government and the RBA are as at one in terms of fighting inflation. They've got a role to play, so do we, and the best thing we can do is to continue with that surplus budget that we've already put in place, delivering cost‑of‑living relief that is taking pressure off inflation while the RBA does its job as well.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: Do you agree the economy's running too high?
 
MURRAY WATT: I think that all of the data that comes out demonstrates that that's not the case, Andrew. We are concerned about getting that balance right between bringing inflation down, as we have done since taking office. Let's remember that when we came to office inflation was over six per cent, that's the legacy left behind by the Coalition. It's now under four per cent as a result of the work that we've done. But at the same time we do need to make sure that we don't crash the economy entirely, and you know, there are all sorts of comments being made by Angus Taylor, Peter Dutton and others calling for cuts to spending without recognising the serious harm that would do to an economy which is already experiencing fairly low growth. So it's about getting that balance right, and the policies that we've put in place around surplus budgets, cost‑of‑living relief, but also investing in future jobs and our future industries is the right one to manage these economic circumstances.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: What do you think of Michele Bullock saying no rate cut for six months? I mean Philip Lowe got into trouble for saying no rate hike for a couple of years.
 
MURRAY WATT: Well, I'm not going to give a personal assessment of Michele Bullock in her role. Obviously she and Jim Chalmers work very closely together, in particular, along with other members of the government, but I think the comments that she has made demonstrate that we do need to be careful in our economic management. We do need to get that balance right, as I was saying. The government will be doing everything we possibly can to keep inflation low and keep it coming down while dealing with a range of other international factors that are beyond our control. So as Michele Bullock recognised, there are things that governments can do, particularly around fiscal policy, and that's what we're doing around our surpluses, cost‑of‑living relief and other spending decisions while she makes her own mind up.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: Do you think she'll change her mind?
 
MURRAY WATT: I'm not going to predict what's in the mind of the Reserve Bank Governor, Andrew. I mean I think that all Australians, including myself as a mortgage holder, were quite relieved that the RBA did not put up rates at its most recent decision. Obviously they're wanting to play a careful game themselves in not acting too quickly or too slow, and that's what we'd certainly hope that they do.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: On the childcare pay rise policy, can you confirm there's an even bigger childcare policy coming our way before the election?
 
MURRAY WATT: Well, the election's a little while off yet, Andrew, so I won't be confirming anything here today, but I think you can see that the government's intent is clear when it comes to broadening access to childcare and early education, making it cheaper for families and also for ensuring the workers in this industry are fairly paid. I was in a childcare centre in the electorate of Peter Khalil, within days of being sworn in to this new role, meeting with early childhood educators, and the point they were making to me was that pay rates in the industry were so low that people were leaving in droves. That presents a workforce issue, not just for the early childhood sector, but also for all of those workers who depend on childcare in order to work themselves.
 
So I think this decision from the government to provide a 15 per cent pay rise to childcare workers is another example of the work that we're doing to deal with cost‑of‑living pressures, make sure that wages are taken into account. You know we've made a range of decisions from supporting aged care pay rises, now to supporting childcare pay rises, supporting minimum wage increases. Making sure that people have the wages they need to deal with cost‑of‑living pressures is just as important as providing some of that cost‑of‑living relief that we have.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: So no concern from you any of the wage rises the government's pushed for could be driving up inflation?
 
MURRAY WATT: No, not at all, Andrew, and in fact you would have seen that in this latest announcement, what we've actually said is that to be eligible to receive this extra money for pay, childcare centres will need to limit any fee increases to 4.4 per cent over the next 12 months. So there's actually a measure in this policy to ensure that it isn't inflationary. I have to say I was pretty disappointed in the response of Peter Dutton and the Opposition to this. They sort of made these begrudging remarks about a pay rise for some of the lowest‑paid and most essential workers in our community, but of course there's always a catch. Peter Dutton went on to say, you know, he's worried about the impact of this pay rise. There's always negativity. It doesn't really sound like they support this pay rise whatsoever, because what they want to do is talk about the impacts that it might have and ignoring the steps we've taken to limit inflationary increases as a result of this decision.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: Let's move to this legislation which is dominating the first part of your time in the job, that's putting the CFMEU into administration. What of the allegations that have been out there around bikies and criminals being involved in the union that concerns you the most and leads you too this action?
 
MURRAY WATT: Oh, look, I think all of Australians, Andrew, were really disturbed by the allegations that we saw reported in recent weeks about what appears to be the clear infiltration of the CFMEU and the construction industry by bikies and organised crime. I think that really tipped the concerns about the CFMEU right over the edge, and that's exactly why our government has taken firm action as quickly as we possibly can. You're right, Andrew, this issue has probably consumed about 80 per cent of my time in the two weeks since I was sworn in, and we want to take action as quickly as possible, and that's why we now will be introducing legislation early this week when Parliament resumes.
 
You may have seen the Fair Work Commission General Manager filed an application in the court seeking the power to put the CFMEU into administration. I was very clear with the union, publicly and privately through correspondence, that if they didn't consent to that application by a couple of days ago, then we would be moving with legislation. They haven't consented, and that's what we're now doing. I think everyone's had a gutful of what they've been seeing from certain parts of this union for a long time. There is no place for criminality, corruption, thuggery, bullying, intimidation in any workplace in Australia, and if it takes legislation to fix that, that's what we're prepared to.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: Obviously you've had some resistance from the union. I'm going to quote from a letter from CFMEU National Secretary, Zach Smith, to his members. He says, "The Federal Government's taken unilateral action against them. The government has undermined the legal process and stripped us of our rights to a fair process. It's not given us the opportunity to address the issues in our union. We already set up an independent investigation led by Geoffrey Watson SC into alleged criminal wrongdoing, we've removed individuals, we've stood others down." What do you make of that?
 
MURRAY WATT: Well, I've already acknowledged the efforts that Zach Smith as the National Secretary has undertaken in the last few weeks, but it's not enough. The problems within this union go so deep that not even Zach Smith as the National Secretary can deal with it on his own. The way the union is structured means that a lot of the state branches and some of the individuals named in these reports have extreme power over the activities of the union, and that's why we believe that legislation is required to give me the power to determine if it's in the public interest to put an administrator in and to clean up this union once and for all.
 
As I say, we have given the union ample opportunity to consent to the application, to recognise that the problems go far deeper than what they've admitted so far. They've chosen not to consent to that application, and frankly, we're not prepared to wait for this to wend its way through the courts with multiple legal challenges, and I don't think Australians want us to wait for that either. You know, I recognise that there are concerns within the union. This is a very targeted approach directed at one division of one union. It won't apply to other unions; it won't even apply to other divisions of the CFMEU. But we need to get to the core of where these problems lie, and that's deep within the construction division of the union along with the industry more broadly.
 
You know, I want to acknowledge that, you know, for every bribe that has allegedly been made to an official there's a person who's paid that bribe, so we need to take a good look at the actions of some employers in the industry as well, and I've raised that with employer groups in meetings that I've had over the last week. But the initial step comes this week with introducing this legislation, and I'm calling on both the Coalition and the Greens to support that legislation so that we can take action once and for all.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: All right. Just on that, your point you made there, the National Secretary also wrote, "I can assure you organised crime is much bigger than any one organisation and the CFMEU's been attacked by criminals associated with the bosses and big business for years". He says a former ACT Branch Secretary says Jason O'Mara had shots fired into his home at one point. Do we need a Royal Commission into the construction industry?
 
MURRAY WATT: I don't believe we need yet another Royal Commission or inquiry into an industry that has been inquiried to death. What we need is action. Now I've seen the Opposition are leaping on having Senate Inquiries or Royal Commissions, and that's indicative of the approach that they took when they were in office. They never took the step that we are taking through this legislation, which is to enable me as the Minister to decide if it's in the public interest to put the union into administration. This is the strongest action that any government have ever taken.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: Minister Watt maybe just like the NACC you need a standing Royal Commission, maybe you need an ABCC, or a body with broader powers if necessary that stands there and looks at this industry. You just made the point it keeps happening despite Royal Commissions. That union Royal Commission put people in jail. So isn't there a fair argument you need some sort of body, strong body to be looking at the industry all the time?
 
MURRAY WATT: No, look, we've already ruled out bringing back the ABCC, and that's partly because the very allegations that have now surfaced about bikie and organised crime activity occurred when the ABCC was in power. So it didn't do anything about those allegations at the time, it spent a lot of its time chasing down unionists who were putting stickers on their helmets and displaying different flags rather than actually dealing with the real issues. We do have the Australian Federal Police already working with state police agencies, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if we end up seeing charges against both union figures and employers as well. And as I say, it is important to make sure that any employers who've been doing the wrong thing and have been breaking the law are held to account as well. That's a police matter. Those matters in many cases are already being investigated by police, and it doesn't matter who's done the wrong thing, they should have the book thrown at them.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: Alright. My lengthy experience on these matters says a Royal Commission gets you more investigations and more charges. Anyway, where will the administrators appointed by the government, assuming this legislation gets through, be based? Will be in the Department of Workplace Relations or in the union offices themselves?
 
MURRAY WATT: Oh, look, we haven't really thought about the physical location of the administrator, but they would be separate to government. It would be an independent administrator, independent of the government and independent of the existing union officials. That's a really important principle, that they are independent ‑‑
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: But they won't necessarily be located at the union?
 
MURRAY WATT: Well, I think initially they'll need their own premises, but I would expect that the administrator would have the power to appoint individuals to run the union once he decides whether people need to be vacated from their office or terminated. Of course one of the things that we want to make sure of here is that construction workers continue to have representation on site. It's a dangerous industry, it's a hard‑working industry. People in the industry deserve representation day‑to‑day. They will have that under this administration, but they would also have a clean union, free of organised crime, and free of criminality for the first time in a very long time.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: You've appointed the former Labor MP for Griffith, Terri Butler as Deputy President of the Fair Work Commission. That's a bit red‑hot in terms of political appointments, isn't it?
 
MURRAY WATT: Oh, I don't think so, Andrew. I announced on Friday two appointments to the Fair Work Commission, one was Ms Butler, who is a very experienced industry relations practitioner, and also I announced the appointment of Damian Sloan to the Fair Work Commission who comes from an employer background. And I guess that reflects the fact that our government is trying to even and make more balanced the Fair Work Commission compared to the employer‑stacked organisation that it was under the former government. But when it comes to Ms Butler, well before she entered Parliament, she was a partner in a law firm, in fact two law firms practising in industrial relations over many years. She's now a serving Commissioner at the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission. I don't think that anyone could dispute her credentials for this role, nor could they dispute the credentials of Mr Sloan who's been appointed as well.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: All right. Nearly out of time. We're going to see this AUKUS treaty tabled in the Parliament during the week. A lot's been made this week of this lying in and around political commitments. What sort of political commitments do the US and UK Governments want from the Australian Government?
 
MURRAY WATT: Yeah, I've seen this commentary over the last few days, Andrew, and I've got to say it's a bit perplexing. The commitments that have been made are those that are in the agreement and in the treaty, which are publicly available. So really all that happened over the course of the week was that the agreement was signed to formally confirm the arrangements that had already been agreed between our country, the US and the UK, which is about technology sharing, information sharing. So I think some of the commentary about secrets and political commitments is a little bit over‑blown.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: Okay. And finally and briefly, Max Chandler‑Mather about to be on. He says despite a letter to Clare O'Neil requesting to meet, that offer hasn't been accepted and there's been no communication back. Your reaction.
 
MURRAY WATT: Oh, look, Max Chandler‑Mather, and the Greens are always looking for excuses to stop Labor building homes. You know, look at their entire record throughout this term. It took months and months to get them to agree to our Housing Australia Future Fund, which is going to be building tens of thousands of new homes. They're currently holding up legislation in the Senate that would help renters buy their own homes and would help developers build more properties to rent. I think Greens voters are getting a bit sick of the Greens from getting in the way of Labor moves that would actually make a difference. What we need now is more homes rather than more political grandstanding, and that's all we ever get from Max and the Greens.
 
ANDREW CLENNELL: Murray Watt, thanks for your time.
 
MURRAY WATT: Thank you Andrew.