Interview with Tom Connell, Hume and McAllister, Sky News
26th August 2022
TOM CONNELL: Each week, of course, we have Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume and Assistant Climate Change and Energy Minister Jenny McAllister facing off, firing up on the big news and political developments. Jane and Jenny, welcome as usual before we delve into today's debate and the part I control; it’s over to you. Sixty seconds each to tee off with your opening opinion, Jenny, let's begin with you. Your government is looking for more energy efficiency in our homes. This speaks to me. I can hear the money going out the window in our apartment in Canberra during winter.
JENNY MCALLISTER: That's right, Tom. Today building ministers will be meeting, and they'll have the opportunity to consider a proposal to lift the standard of new housing. There are 150,000 new homes built each and every year. At the moment, they need to be built to a six-star rating. This proposal would see them built to seven stars. Now, if it is passed, it'll be the first time there's been any substantial change in a decade. It's another area where the previous Liberal government made almost zero progress, and it has real costs each and every year. Billions of dollars are wasted on energy. Money that Australians spend on energy goes out the door through warm air exiting poorly constructed homes or through inefficient air conditioners, or just old or badly designed appliances running all year round. This is a real opportunity to shift the dial across thousands of homes that will be built in the coming years. I really look forward to seeing the outcome of today's discussions.
TOM CONNELL: Maybe there were some retrofitting because it's not going to help my little apartment in Kingston I can live in hope, Jane, you’re revved up about superannuation.
JANE HUME: I am Tom. Because before the election, Stephen Jones said that stability and certainty of superannuation was a priority. This week more than the cap being built, Jim Chalmers made a radical new policy agenda for superannuation. Now, you'll recall that when the Coalition was in government, we reduced fees, we improved accountability and transparency, and we removed and exited those persistently underperforming funds. We make superannuation work for members. Well, Labor is making superannuation work for Labor. Because they've said that what they want to do is crack open that $3.4 trillion nest egg and use it for nation-building priorities for improving influence in the region, and also for pursuing Labour's policy objectives things like housing and energy and climate. He even called it workers capital. Now understand, these are all lofty goals, but if they're not financially viable, if they don't make a good return on investment, well, that's the reason why super funds aren't investing in those things already. It's important to remember that superannuation does not belong to the government. It doesn't belong to the unions. It doesn't belong to superannuation funds themselves. It belongs to you. You earned it, you saved it, and somebody is investing it in trust on your behalf for your retirement. Once again, we're seeing when Labor run out of money, they simply come after yours.
TOM CONNELL: Alright, let's get into the big topic of the week business groups and unions keen to get a seat at the table at the Albanese governments Jobs and Skills Summit. It's less than a week away now, the Australian Council of Trade Unions has announced as well. This was just yesterday that it wants to see a rethink of enterprise bargaining, including allowing multi-employer or sector-wide bargaining access to boost wages. Here's a recap on how the conversation around skills has gone this week.
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TOM CONNELL: Jenny, let's start with you on this. It would be a pretty big change if the unions got this particular change. Do you think it's something that employers would be possibly forced into, or would be an opt-in basis?
JENNY MCALLISTER: It's a really interesting conversation, Tom. I mean, the thing leading up to this forum that's been very interesting to me is how much agreement there is. Employers, worker representatives, government representatives, and experts all say that there are problems with the enterprise bargaining system, and it has real consequences. Wages are flat, productivity is flat. That's been the case for a decade, and we need to fix it. All sorts of people are putting ideas on the table. And that's the purpose of next week's summit. I think that we will see a range of proposals brought forward. I think we're seeing a really promising willingness on behalf of all of the stakeholders actually listen to one another and engage in dialogue. That's actually the point of the summit.
TOM CONNELL: So Jane, the interesting thing about this is, I guess, if you go to consider a pretty radical solution, is it a radical problem? Do we have something broken in the bargaining system? When we have such ultra-low unemployment and not being the driver of wage increases that it has been in the past?
JANE HUME: Well, I think this is the great frustration, isn't it? We really know what the job summit should be about, which is about worker shortages. That's the priority. of business right now. Not industrial reimagining of industrial relations with more and more dialogue. In fact, some solutions could be implemented immediately to the worker shortage. One month after the election, Peter Dutton announced a doubling of the pension to worker bonus. We've already introduced that legislation into Parliament. If Labor was sincere about really wanting to address the problems and businesses, which is worker shortages. They could have adopted that legislation immediately, and we could have pensioners working in the workforce right now, alleviating those jobs shortages. So look, let's face it, I think that this jobs summit is becoming, like the wish list of the ACTU, seems to be expanding on a daily basis. It's looking to me like nothing more than a talk fest and a photo opportunity. Already we've seen Jim Chalmers rule in and rule out some of the outcomes. Well, if there are predetermined outcomes, why do we need the fest in the first place? We haven't even invited some of the biggest employers in the country in the banks. They employ hundreds of thousands of Australians. They are front and centre of industrial relations, the future of industrial relations, and yet they haven't been invited for a seat at the table. I think this is going to be more show than outcome.
TOM CONNELL: What about immigration as part of this conversation, Jenny, because it was reduced under the coalition that permanent migration cap of 160k, now everyone says it has to go up. Do we need it to go up sizably? How cautious do we need to be in this area?
JENNY MCALLISTER: Migration will definitely be on the agenda at the job skills summit. We need to have a conversation about the approach we're taking. Unfortunately, like so many things under the liberals, this was not approached in a particularly methodical way, nor was it approached in a way that involve all the stakeholders who've got an interest in this. We know that many people left the country during the pandemic. It's one of the reasons that we do have shortages and that businesses are talking about their challenges in obtaining labour. So part of the solution lies in migration. But part of the solution, of course, also lies in reviving the training agenda. This was left to languish under the liberals. We know that there are Australians out there who want new skills, and who want to work and are ready to be part of the industries of the future. But for the last nine years, there's been no plan to get them there. Part of the skills summit in the Jobs and Skills Summit is about talking with employers, talking with Unions talking with training organizations about how we are going to generate some homegrown skills alongside the migration challenge.
TOM CONNELL: Reducing immigration is an interesting push at the time. It seemed to be a bit on the political side as well. There was talk about whether or not it would reduce pressure on infrastructure and maybe bring down house prices. We had this accidental experiment with COVID We found that really didn't do that. Was it a mistake in hindsight to have pressure down on migration numbers?
JANE HUME: Well, it certainly was a mistake in hindsight to close the borders throughout COVID. That was probably one of the reasons we had...
TOM CONNELL: No, but pre-covid, just to clarify...
JANE HUME: Yes, I understand. But I entirely agree that a well managed migration program has actually underpinned Australia's prosperity for decades. Now it's important that we reinvigorate that what we're going to see next week, though, is extraordinary tensions, I think, between the demands of the unions, and also the demands of the government, and I'll be interested to see how that one plays out. We know that the government has the capacity and the ability to bring in more migrants immediately and in fact, the department is ready to go to process obviously, there were some changes during COVID; there was reprioritization getting Australians back into the country rather than bringing in new migrants. Security checks need to be done and the processes need to take place. But you can flick a switch and say ready to go it's only the unions that are holding Labor back on this one.
TOM CONNELL: We're gonna go into royal commissions. I'll just go straight into this because we're very close to going to Anthony Albanese at The Daily Telegraph Bush Summit. Jenny McAllister, a royal commission called on Robo Debt. I think we get why, albeit we know a fair bit about what happened here. Labor’s pledged not to do the same thing, i.e. income averaging of this scale. So surely the Royal Commission on Covid has to be your priority right now and all things Covid.
JENNY MCALLISTER: Two things on this, Tom, on the Robo Debt, if we don't actually know what happened, there was a settlement offered by the Commonwealth. What we do know is that it hurt a lot of people. It made a lot of people extremely unhappy, and in some cases very, very ill. We need to get to the bottom of that to make sure that it doesn't happen again. Of course, at some point, we’re going to need to examine our pandemic response and I think the Prime Minister made it pretty clear that there will be a point where we need to do that. Examining the crisis generated by Robo Debt and the poor decision making that led to it is really important. Those who ignored history are doomed to repeat it. We want to make sure this doesn't happen again.
TOM CONNELL: Apologies to you both. We’re having to truncate the program that's where we will have to leave it because we do have Anthony Albanese standing up. We can blame the fog, I should say. Jane and Jenny, we will talk again next week.