SARAH FERGUSON, PRESENTER: Murray Watt, welcome to 730.
MURRAY WATT, EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS MINISTER: G’day, Sarah, good to be with you.
SARAH FERGUSON: Now you’re asking the Fair Work Commission to increase the minimum wage. What dollar figure should the minimum wage be?
MURRAY WATT: Well, that will be a matter for the commission, Sarah, to decide. Our government, and no government puts a figure on exactly what the commission should decide.
But what we’re saying in our submission is that we do think Australia’s lowest paid workers deserve and need an economically sustainable real wage increase, so an increase above inflation that is economically sustainable.
Obviously, the commission will consider a range of factors in arriving at a figure, but as you would be aware, we’ve worked really hard this term to get wages moving again, to get real wages growing again, after 10 years of the Coalition deliberately keeping wages low, and we want to see real wages continue to grow, especially for the 3 million lowest paid in our community.
SARAH FERGUSON: Handing down its decision last year, the Fair Work Commission said it wouldn’t increase award wages above inflation because labour productivity is no higher than it was four years ago. Now productivity was down 1.2 per cent in the year to December. Why would you push for an increase in these conditions.
MURRAY WATT: Well, our view as a Labor government is that we do want to see the lowest paid workers in our community be able to not just meet their cost-of-living pressures, but to get ahead.
We’ve obviously supported people in the community with our tax cuts that have been fairer. The new tax cuts, we’ve announced that Peter Dutton is opposing, a range of cost-of-living relief as well. But of course, getting wages lifted again has been a really crucial factor in helping Australians deal with the cost-of-living pressures that they’re facing and continue to face.
When it comes to productivity, we absolutely support lifting productivity in our economy. What we don’t agree with is the approach of Peter Dutton and the Coalition, which is that people should work longer for less.
That didn’t work when they were in office, when we saw the worst decade of productivity growth we’d seen in 60 years despite low wages. What we want to do is lift productivity at the same time as lift wages, especially for the lowest paid in our community.
SARAH FERGUSON: Now, everyone says they want to lift productivity. The question is whether you are taking the measures to achieve it. The Reserve Bank Governor said that the economy cannot sustain wage increases without productivity growth in the medium term. Even at the margins, why would you want to do something that makes the Reserve Bank’s job on inflation harder?
MURRAY WATT: Well, what we’ve seen, Sarah is that we have as a government been able to drive wages up while driving inflation down and now starting to see interest rates fall as well.
So, the fact is that while our productivity level hasn’t been as high as we would like it, and we aim to get it, we still have seen higher wages while more than halving inflation, and of course, seeing interest rates come down as well.
Now as I say, we want to lift productivity. The way we want to do it is a Labor way of doing it that does look after people and take the whole nation forward. It’s why we’re investing in technology; it’s why we’re investing in the energy transition; t’s why we’re driving competition reform.
And just last week, you may have seen we announced that we will ban non-compete clauses in employment contracts, and the Productivity Commission itself has said that that will lift productivity as well as wages.
SARAH FERGUSON: So, when do we when do we see the yields then? Because at this stage in the electoral cycle, we would be looking at judging you. The voters will be judging you on results, not only intentions. So, when do we see a change in productivity that’s been so sluggish.
MURRAY WATT: Well, I would remind you that when we came to office, we had seen a decade of the lowest productivity growth that we’d seen in 60 years.
So, I think it’s a little unrealistic to think that was going to turn around within one or two years. This is something that is a core agenda for our government.
As I say, we’ve got a very broad productivity agenda that we’re already delivering. The debate really is about how we get to higher productivity and Labor’s approach is about investing in skills, investing in the energy transition technology.
Peter Dutton and the Coalition just want to cut wages and introduce an Americanised labour market where people have low pay, no job security, and go backwards, just like they did last time they were in office.
SARAH FERGUSON: Can you give us some kind of time frame, some timescale to judge you on as the voters look at your promises.
MURRAY WATT: Well, I’ll leave it for other people to judge our performance, especially on May the 3rd but you can be assured that lifting our productivity rate, just like lifting wages, lifting employment, just like we’ve done this term, are core priorities for us going forward.
But what we want to do is do it in a fair way and an economically responsible way. We’re not about cutting, we’re not about cutting the health department. We’re not about cutting Medicare. We’re not about importing every other policy from the US that Peter Dutton wakes up to every morning.
We’re about Australian solutions, which include a fair go, especially when it comes to wages.
SARAH FERGUSON: I just want to point out, I’m sure the audience can start to hear the lines forming around the government accusing the opposition of Americanising Australia. We’ll come back to that in a moment. But the Australian Chamber of Commerce said that this increase would threaten small businesses. We’re all aware how much small businesses are suffering, particularly under very high energy costs. Can the small businesses of Australia afford this wage increase that you’re asking for?
MURRAY WATT: We think that small businesses and large businesses in Australia can afford an economically sustainable, real pay increase for our lowest paid workers.
Again, we’ve seen this is what we’ve basically argued for over the last couple of years, and where we have seen those wages growing, it hasn’t crashed the economy.
We’ve actually seen record numbers of businesses opening in Australia in this term of government, just as we’ve seen record job creation in this term of government.
So, for all of the dire predictions that we’ve seen from some parts of big business, some parts of small business, the Coalition, that things would fall apart, things are now turning a corner, and we’re seeing inflation go down, wages go up, jobs go up.
I mean, the issue with Peter Dutton and the Coalition and some of their friends in the business community, Peter Dutton wants a pay rise for himself. He wants the ability to work from home overlooking Sydney Harbor, while he bans work from home from other people, and wants them to take a pay cut. That is an appalling way to treat Australian people, especially the lowest paid.
SARAH FERGUSON: Let’s go to the subject of tariffs, because obviously tomorrow is going to be a very important day. What would, if you could, what would be the consequences of a 20 per cent tariff, particularly on, well, on Australian exports, but especially on Australian beef and pharmaceuticals.
MURRAY WATT: Well, I guess I don’t really want to confirm or predict exactly what we might see tomorrow, whether it be figures or exactly what the decision will be. We’ve only got a few hours to wait now to see what the decision is.
Of course, we’ve been lobbying extremely hard at all levels to try to convince the US to not go ahead with this.
We think it would be completely counterproductive to US citizens to have these tariffs imposed, because if we’re talking about beef or pharmaceuticals or anything else, the result is just that US consumers will pay more.
Now you will have seen the Prime Minister make the point we do need to keep this in perspective. The US, while it’s an important export market, it’s about 5 per cent of our exports go there, we have many other markets, and you will have seen our government work incredibly hard to restore our trade position with our biggest trading partner being China, after that was trashed by the Coalition last time they were in office.
We’ll continue to work to diversify our markets, but we’ll be continuing to lobby the US not to do this right up until they make their decision.
SARAH FERGUSON: David Coleman, the shadow Foreign Affairs spokesman, said the government’s effort has lacked energy. Could I get your response to that?
MURRAY WATT: Well, I mean, seriously, these are the people who trashed our trading relationship with our biggest trading partner when they were last in office.
Again, as the agriculture minister, I met countless farmers and farm organisations who had suffered immense financial damage as a way the Coalition, as a result of the way the Coalition carried on with our trading relationship with China.
We’re not about to take lessons from people who proved completely incompetent when they were in government and all this macho stuff that we’re going on with Peter Dutton and his colleagues at the moment, it doesn’t lead to anything. I actually think it’s a bit sad and pathetic really.
