Radio 2CC Interview - Transcript - 4 February 2025

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC WITH LEON DELANEY

Subjects: Same Job, Same Pay; Cost of Living Relief; Antisemitism; Taxpayer-funded long lunches for bosses

4 FEBRUARY 2025

Leon Delaney, Host: Today is the first day of sitting for the Federal Parliament this year some say it might be the last sitting session of the year ahead of the election which must occur sometime before mid-May although there are some who are brave enough to predict the Prime Minister might chose to go to the polls a little earlier. Our local member for the seat of Fenner who is also the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment Dr Andrew Leigh, good afternoon.

Andrew Leigh: Good afternoon, Leon, great to be with you.

Delaney: Thanks for joining us first day back at the Parliament today but of course you live here so you managed to quite neatly sidestep the opportunity to meet with disgruntled United Workers Union members at the Canberra airport, who were there to welcome the returning politicians and let them know of their concerns about their employment conditions. In your view, Andrew, is it fair that workers who have worked in a job sometimes for many years should suddenly have to reapply for their own job simply because a contractor has changed? Still the same workers, still doing the same job, not their fault?

Leigh: Well, Leon, certainly the details of that will be a matter for others, but we've aimed to provide more job security. The same job, same pay laws that we put through the Parliament were about ensuring that temporary labour is being used to fill temporary skill shortages, not in order to set up a shadow workforce. That legislation has seen significant pay increases for some working in the mining sector. There have been people who were working alongside others effectively doing the same work, who now have gotten a better deal as a result of those laws.

Delaney: Yeah. I don't know if you know much about the situation at Canberra Airport, but basically the airport's decided to change from one contractor to another. The new contractor is supposed to rehire all the old workers, but there's some suggestion that people who are not Australian citizens won't be offered their jobs. Other people might be refused their job for whatever reason. These are people that have been loyal and devoted employees and in some instances put their lives on the line to keep the public safe, including the security guard who assisted in the apprehension of the mad gunman a while back who let loose five rounds in the departure lounge. I mean, that's no way to treat a security guard that has provided that kind of service, is it?

Leigh: No. Look, I certainly feel for those workers in that situation. I’m not across all of the details, so I'm reluctant to just spout off on the issues, but I do understand the concerns that are being raised. It's a real concern for the government, which is why we passed those same jobs, same pay laws through the Parliament.

Delaney: First day of Parliament today. And of course there's a lot of unfinished business before the parliament, isn't there? Including of course, the plans to reform electoral funding rules. And that's been contentious, hasn't it.

Leigh: We want to get big money out of politics. We don't think that elections should be won based on who's got the deepest pockets but based on who's got the best ideas. And that's work that we're continuing to do, led by Don Farrell, in order to find a way to get quicker disclosure in order to make sure we've accountability here in the ACT. We've got spending caps and we've just seen a couple of new independents enter the Legislative Assembly. So, I think that suggests that we don't want to believe the fear campaign that spending caps will somehow stop independents from getting up.

Delaney: Spending caps in principle may not do that, but it depends very much on how those caps are designed and applied. Doesn't it?

Leigh: It does, and we've been working to get a good approach to this. There's been parliamentary inquiries, a lot of discussion across the parliament. We do want to get bipartisan support for what would be an important reform in ensuring that we don't go down the road of just seeing large donations win the day.

Delaney: Ok, so if you get bipartisan support, that means that Labour and the Liberal National Coalition can combine to pass measures that suit the big parties, potentially at the expense of minor parties and independents. Why not take the deal at the crossbenches offering and separate the non-contentious elements out so that can be passed and put in place now? And we know that's locked in for this year's election then work out the details on the rest of it later.

Leigh: Yeah, I know Don Farrell's been meeting with people right across the Parliament. I was chatting with him about this yesterday and he was talking about some of the meetings he's been having with Independents. The aim there is to try and get a broad tent reform. I think all parliamentarians should be committed to the idea that we want elections to be won based on the strength of policy platforms, not on donors. We don't want to see big money playing an excessively large role in politics. We don't want to see billionaires buying elections. This really is about ensuring that our democracy operates as well as it can. Ours is a great democracy. We've led the world with the use of the ballot box, with a secret ballot, with universal voting. This is another important Australian reform that could see Australia lead the world in transparency and democracy.

Delaney: Ok, now, the other big one at the moment, of course, is the anti-race hate speech laws. There's still some discussion on that underway, but I believe the government wants to have something in place asap.

Leigh: Yes, absolutely. We're working on a whole range of crackdowns in antisemitism, the first ever antisemitism envoy, the investment in improving safety and security at Jewish sites, the announcement of Holocaust Education Centre here in the ACT, and then getting these additional laws into place. And that obviously follows on the ban on the Nazi salute and hate symbols, which came into effect a year ago. Penalties up to a year's imprisonment and sixteen thousand dollars.

Delaney: Ok, but should anti hate speech legislation be specifically directed at anyone particular, at protecting any one particular group? Shouldn't it be protection for anybody from minority groups?

Leigh: We need to have sort of precision around how these laws operate. We've engaged with experts and with community groups on these laws. This is the way in which we think is the best way of strengthening those hate speech laws. And it does stand in contrast with the attitude of Liberals and Nationals. You'll remember, Leon, that suggestion from a former Liberal Attorney General that people ‘have a right to be bigots’. They wanted to water down our race hate laws. Labor now wants to strengthen them.

Delaney: Well, to be fair, I kind of understood where he was coming from. People do have the right to be bigots, people have the right to be rude, people have the right to be antisocial. But of course, if they exercise those rights, they need to understand that there may well be consequences in the way that the rest of the community receives them, won't they?

Leigh: Well, there were consequences for the way in which George Brandis made those statements. One of my parliamentary colleagues told the story in Parliament of a woman in her electorate having her hijab ripped off and the perpetrator saying, well, we're told we have a right to be bigots. So, words have consequences.

Delaney: Just because you've had a right to be prejudiced, or whatever the case might be, does not give you the right to assault somebody, does it?

Leigh: Absolutely not. We need to strengthen those race hate laws, understanding that there is a rise in Islamophobia, a rise in antisemitism, which is why we've done more to tackle both of those scourges than any previous Australian Government.

Delaney: And it is obviously a challenging time because it appears to be an increasingly difficult problem for whatever reason, just in recent months now, a lot of people link it to the conflict in the Middle east, but there's a ceasefire there now. That doesn't seem to have eased the pressure very much, does it?

Leigh: I think it's the conflict in the Middle East being fanned by hatemongers on both sides in Australia. It's really incumbent on all of us as parliamentarians to be working to build cohesion, to build understanding and tolerance. We're a great multicultural democracy. Part of this is about measures such as criminalising doxxing or the national database on antisemitic incidents. But part of it too is just how we talk and how we ensure that we're reflecting to all Australians that they're part of our great democracy.

Delaney: Now, I know that you and the Government today are making much of the fact that Treasury has costed the opposition's promise to provide tax deductions for business lunches and entertainment expenses, bringing back the good old days, you know, when we could have a very long lunch on the taxpayer’s dime. But the Treasury has said it's going to be $1.6 billion a year. The Opposition says that costing is wrong. They'll provide their own costings through the Parliamentary Budget Office in due course. And that's the normal course of things, isn't it? When the election campaign gets launched, they'll be expected to deliver on that, won't they?

Leigh: The normal course of things Leon -- as you well know as an experienced election watcher – is that you announce a policy and you announce how much it costs. You don't say, here's our policy and the cost will come later. Australians are entitled to judge the policy and judge what it will cost them. And the costings that Treasury has produced, somewhere between $1.6 and $10 billion per year, mean that the cost to Australian households could be up to $1,000 per year per household, per year for long lunches for bosses. This isn't a productivity boosting measure, it's not an equity boosting measure. Not going to do anything for growth or fairness.

Delaney: It might do something for struggling cafes and restaurants.

Leigh: The cafes and restaurant sector at the moment are looking for more workers. Free TAFE and investing in apprenticeships is what we're doing to assist that sector. We have a range of targeted measures. There's been targeted tax breaks for small businesses to invest in IT equipment or invest in skills or training. But those tax breaks, Leon, are productivity-boosting tax breaks. They're targeted on helping the entire economy and they cost significantly less than some of these costings suggest.

Delaney: The idea of announcing policy without costing, you say that's not the proper protocol, but, you know, judging by the actions of the opposition so far, it seems to be standard procedure that you announce something but don't provide any details until, well, ever. In reference to the announcement by the coalition that they intend to make cuts in the public service, often referred to as 36,000 jobs, but the opposition itself has not been specific about how many jobs, apparently I saw an article with Peter Dutton the other day explaining that we'll make those decisions after we get elected. We know what we're doing. That's pretty much like, you know, trust us, you know, we're the experts, but we're not providing any details.

Leigh: It's an absolute shocker. And we know that when the coalition were in office that they had a shadow public service workforce of more than 50,000 consultants and contractors. We know too that many of the new public servants who've joined the service have been a matter of bringing those consultants and contractors in house or dealing with the wait time blowouts and things like processing veterans claims. The things that would be at risk if you cut 1 in 5 public servants include quarantine, include defence, they include passport processing times. Public servants are providing services that Australians rely on. And if we go back to the days of rorts, waste and long wait times under the Coalition, then that would take Australia backwards. It wouldn't just hurt Canberra, it would hurt everyone that relies on public servants and that's all Australians.

Delaney: Well, Peter Dutton did say he wants to take Australia back on track, didn't he?

Leigh: Well, let's not backtrack to Dutton.

Delaney: I couldn't resist it. Andrew, thanks very much for chatting today.

Leigh: Thank you, Leon.

Delaney: Dr. Andrew Leigh, the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury, Assistant Minister of Employment and our local Minister.

Ends


Cnr Gungahlin Pl and Efkarpidis Street, Gungahlin ACT 2912 | 02 6247 4396 | [email protected] | Authorised by A. Leigh MP, Australian Labor Party (ACT Branch), Canberra.