Speers: Sally McManus, welcome to the program. McManus: Great to be here, David.
Speers: You tweeted on Friday that, "If the Federal Government had done the job of getting all
the stranded Aussies home by Christmas as promised there would be no more mutant infectious virus in
Australia." Do you really think it's that simple? McManus: I think there is a clear change from last
year to this year and the fact that the virus has changed and it is more infectious,
and so that provides or poses biggest threats to our
community about it escaping, as it has. Clearly there is a difference. So
the more we're bringing in people that have that infectious virus, the greater the risk.
Speers: What are you saying? We should somehow stop people coming in altogether?
McManus: No, I was just making the point that if we had have done what the Prime Minister promised
which was to get all the Aussies home by Christmas, we wouldn't have the mutant
virus here - that simple point I was making. Speers: We would still have more people coming,
though, more Aussies who want to come home for compassionate reasons,
a dying relative or whatever, as I said before tennis players being brought in
people would still be crossing the border. McManus: I think the key issue is a vaccine
rollout. The sooner we can get that vaccine to frontline workers, to hotel quarantine workers,
to flight attendants, to all the people that are involved in the chain of looking after people who
are coming home, the better. Even if it reduces infection by a small amount, that will make a
big difference for a more infectious strain or any strain of the coronavirus. That's the number one
thing we can do right now to keep us all safe. Speers: Let me ask you about that because there
is some debate amongst employers and the vaccine, whether it should be possible for an employer to
say it’s mandatory to have the vaccine if you want to work at this site. What do you think?
What's the unions movement's approach to this? McManus: The really good thing about our country
is from the beginning of this pandemic is we made a decision to take advice from medical experts and
to make decisions based on what medical experts say. So what we say is it should do exactly the
same in terms of the vaccine. It should be up to medical experts, not individual employers,
not individual people around the place to decide it's mandatory or not it’s mandatory. If medical
experts say that it should be for certain workers, well, we accept that. We don't think it is a good
idea for there to be a divisive debate in our country about whether a vaccine should be taken
or not, and that's the best course for us to take. Governments should be spending their time building
confidence in the vaccine and the vaccine rollout. Speers: Does that mean having some sort of medical
authority saying, "This meatworks, or this hospital, it is mandatory. But
at this mine site, it is not mandatory." McManus: That's exactly what happens now.
Many people maybe don’t know, but nurses for example have to get the flu vaccine every year
and other vaccines a lot of people, workers do. People who work in meatworks do too because there
are viruses can you catch from animals. This is a health problem and there are people who are
experts and we should be taking advice from them. Speers: Who should employers turn to
and unions, I suppose, to get that authoritative advice on that work site?
McManus: Well, health experts they should make orders to say that these particular workers need
to take the vaccine for health reasons, and that's the way it should operate. Then we as a community
need to accept that advice. If that's what is the right thing to do for our country and
for our health, that's what we should accept. Speers: Just on the economy at the moment, the
Reserve Bank Governor, the Treasury secretary are all saying the economy is in recovery now and they
seem relatively relaxed about JobKeeper coming to an end next month.
What do you think? Should JobKeeper continue as is? Should something else take its place? What
should happen at the end of next month? McManus: Well, this is a really, really
important decision that the Government is going to make, whether to keep JobKeeper or whether not
to, and at the moment they're saying they're not. If you are in Melbourne at the moment,
you would be pretty worried about JobKeeper being removed. If you are in Queensland,
North Queensland where they've been really smashed because they depend on international tourists,
obviously higher education sector that missed out, all of these businesses as well as manufacturing,
actually, are still being badly affected because of the coronavirus.
What we say is JobKeeper should be extended for those businesses that are still affected by the
coronavirus, through no fault of their own, they are suffering that downturn. We say that because
that will save jobs. We were part of winning JobKeeper in the first place. We think it has been
one of the best decisions our country has made in terms of stopping the unemployment
queues and keeping people connected to work. Speers: So any business that is still suffering,
do you do another test of turnover or revenue to assess - doesn't matter
if they're just in tourism, could be any business, should keep getting it?
McManus: That's right, it’s not just tourism, but obviously tourism is badly affected. It's
also manufacturing, parts of manufacturing are as welling and that's shown up in the ABS stats and
that's because they're connected to retail. It would be wrong to just pick one sector.
Obviously the aviation sector has also been very, very badly affected and it should be supported,
but if you just take one sector, you are going to leave out businesses that are also
affected by the coronavirus that need support. Speers: And run JobKeeper for another six months?
McManus: Well, for as long as the pandemic is with us, I think.
Speers: That could be a very long time! McManus: Maybe, maybe not, it depends
on the vaccine rollout really, doesn't it? Speers: It does, but in some form of another,
international tourism, for example is not likely to be back on its feet for a very long time?
McManus: I think as a country, if you think about Far North Queensland in particular, they are
really dependent on overseas tourism, more so than the big cities where there’s other options, so
I think the idea of continuing to support them and continuing to support parts of aviation and
obviously higher education, there is really good arguments for that.
Speers: Let's turn to the industrial relations debate. You've been speaking a lot about insecure
work and this is what Labor's policy announcement this week is all about. I suspect a lot of people
feel like they're in insecure work whether casuals or gig economy workers or even permanent
employees, struggling business. How do you define "insecure work"? Who is an insecure worker?
McManus: There are two ways of doing it. Quite often business and Government will point to casual
workers and that's about 25% of the economy, but that's not all there is. There is gig economy
workers, there’s labour hire, people on fixed-term contracts, so you've got to add those people into
it and also situations where people might be in part-time work, but employers will flex their
hours up and down every single week, so that's an issue, too. So anything, anything our governments
can do, political parties can do, to make jobs more secure is a very good thing for our country.
Speers: We are talking there in those categories, you listed three or four million
workers, what is your understanding of what they would get under Labor?
McManus: What Labor has announced is addressing all of those different forms of insecure work. It
would be a mistake just to focus on one because you're not dealing with the whole problem.
Effectively in our country we've let the problem of insecure work get away from us.
People on rolling fixed-term contracts, that's not a normal thing in the rest of the OECD,
there are limits of how many fixed contracts you can be on before you are offered a permanent job.
Labour hire, this situation where people are just disposable, they are used via labour hire
and where they're working next to people who are paid more, same job, same pay would make sure
employers don’t have that economic incentive to make jobs insecure. Casual workers, we have
to get rid of this whole idea of permanent casual. The two words don't fit together.
Part of what they have announced is that. Finally the gig economy - if we don't address this,
it won't be just delivery riders who will be affected by losing those basic job
security rights, it could be any worker where your job can be reduced to task.
Speers: Ok again, what would they get? For a gig economy worker, what would change for
them? What security would they suddenly get? McManus: Gig economy workers at the moment
virtually have no rights. They have less rights than workers in Australia did 100 years ago.
So under what Labor has announced, they would get all the basic rights of other workers. So
minimum wage, sick pay if they are working regular hours, the right to bargain. Those
things that are the basic safety net for… Speers: You think gig economy workers
would get sick leave under Labor's policy? McManus: Part of what has been announced
is the Fair Work Commission would say a sector are employees rather than being
their own small business. And once you are an employee, you have a right to all of the
conditions. It might be still that they're employed as casuals, or it
might be that the company decides, "Well, we're better off employing them full time."
That would be just as it normally is, with everyone else, the same rights.
Speers: But to be clear though, the policy is that the Fair Work Commission, the umpire would
be able to look at that sector and decide what rights they are entitled to. There is no guarantee
an Uber driver would get sick leave under Labor? McManus: Look, it's really important that it's
done this way and that's because these big tech companies like Uber around the world have been
fighting governments and the unions where we've been trying to get rights for people
and they just change things, they say, "OK, you no longer wear a uniform. You no longer…
you have to have a second job." They do things just slightly to get around the rules. This is
a way of ensuring that doesn't happen. Also a way of making sure that people are genuinely
independent contractors, your plumber out there, that they are not covered by it. If you are
genuinely an independent contractor, they shouldn’t be covered by these rules. We
are talking about the grey area, the big tech companies that have grown rich on the back of
exploiting people – that we fix that. Speers: What about casuals, though?
Do you think casuals should get sick leave and annual leave and long service leave,
as well as the loading they get in lieu of those entitlements, or should it be one or the other?
What exactly are you suggesting needs to happen? McManus: A couple of things. We've got to get rid
of the idea of people who work regular hours and they do that for years and
years and years and they don't get those basic entitlements. They’re not employees.
Unfortunately what the Government is proposing now is to legitimate that,
so we shouldn’t do that and then those workers should have a choice
of permanency and if they take that choice, well then you no longer get the loading, but you do get
the security and you do get the entitlements. Speers: After a year, you should get the
choice to be a permanent or a casual? McManus: Well, the Government is proposing a
year. We would like to see that being a bit less. Speers: What would you like to see?
McManus: Well, six months or nine months, we think is fairer, but if it is a year,
that's an improvement. Speers: And then
if the employer says no, what happens? McManus: This is part of what the
problems with the Government's proposed laws. Speers: I'm asking what you would like to see?
McManus: We would like to see them converted. If a worker wants a permanent job, for them
to get that permanent job. At the moment what the Government is saying is that employers can
have reasonable grounds and that reasonable grounds would be if they just decide they
don't want to and you can't even go to the independent umpire and get that challenged.
Speers: You would like to say the law to say after six months at one workplace, if you want
to be permanent, you have to be made permanent? McManus: So long as you are working regular hours,
you are genuinely casual. Not if you are working here or there or all over the place.
Speers: But the employer should be required under law to make you permanent?
McManus: Yes… If the job is a permanent, ongoing job, you should have permanent ongoing rights.
Speers: With all these things and the idea of making entitlements
portable to another workplace and so on, the Government has as you know suggested
at the extreme if every casual and independent contractor had these entitlements, it would cost
business $20 billion. That's an extreme example and is not going to happen, but there would be
some cost to business if they do have to provide these entitlements, right? What is a level of cost
that you think business should be able to bear? McManus: Well, it is interesting on this issue
of portability of entitlements. This is already happening in the construction industry and in
the community sector industries. Speers: For long service leave?
McManus: And also for annual leave too and it’s the whole issue of if you work one job and then
another job, another job, even though you're in the industry, that is the nature of that industry,
how are you ever get those entitlements? They work very successfully. Employers
like it and the reason why they do is because over a period of time they actually pay less.
Speers: But if you are saying to a business, "You have to make someone permanent after six months,"
and offer them all these leave entitlements," that's going to cost them, isn't it?
McManus: No, because the employee would then not get the casual loading.
Speers: So you would lose the casual loading, become permanent and you
think this is a net zero cost to business? McManus: Yes, yes. I actually think it is a
positive for business. When people have certainty in their jobs, when they have that job security,
they're more likely to spend and the thing is about our coronavirus recovery, it's going to
be a grassroots recovery. You've got to look after the grassroots. That's working people.
That's the 12 million people that are going to be spending in local businesses. If we go about
doing what the Government is proposing and that it to reduce wages, to make jobs more insecure,
we will spend less - that's not going to be good for the economic recovery.
Speers: Sally McManus, I appreciate
your Thank you. McManus: Thank you.