SUBJECT/S: 457 visas; penalty rates; casualisation; George Christensen bribery allegation; mobile black spot funding
BRENDAN O’CONNOR, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: So I’m obviously here with Frank, and Jenna’s story is emblematic of what’s happening in this country. The Federal Government has acted to destroy the maritime industry, to undermine seafarers, to undermine workers generally. This is an excuse to get rid of workers like Jenna who are qualified to do the job - is nothing more than seeking to undermine conditions and employment security in this country.
Now, I just need to say something about the local federal Member here. George Christensen says he supports local jobs, well firstly he lied when he says he has $100 million jobs plan. There is no jobs plan, it hasn’t been costed by the Government and he’s telling lies and he should stop it.
Secondly, he says he supports local workers overseas, yet he voted to oppose Labor’s restrictions to 457 usage in the last term of Parliament. So what he says and what he does are two different things. Instead we have a candidate in Frank Gilbert who will stand up for local jobs, who will stand up for penalty rates, who will oppose the abuse and exploitation of workers in this country, the abuse and exploitation that has occurred to Jenna Calamiri and her other colleagues. And Labor if elected will be examining the manner in which this has happened as we will be tightening up on the abuse of casualisation, the exploitation of workers and this use of labour hire arrangements. Because what’s happening under the watch of the Abbott-Turnbull Government is an absolute disgrace with workers having no security, with people being sacked unfairly in the case of the maritime industry - Australian workers being dragged out of their work places, off those vessels and replaced by a foreign crew. It’s unAustralian, it’s unacceptable, and yet it’s done with the support and complicity of the Abbott-Turnbull Government. And we need to put it to an end. The only way we can put it to an end is firstly to elect Frank in this electorate and secondly elect a Shorten Labor Government.
JOURNALIST: So with the legislation framework and the way it is - the partnership agreements, are they legal?
O’CONNOR: Well, I’ll have to examine the details of that, but we know the intention. The intention is to avoid proper employment conditions, the intention is to sack decent qualified Australian workers, the intention is to deprive someone like Jenna who has committed herself to being qualified and undertaking the task that she was so well trained to do. This is the intention. What we will do is examine exactly what the company have chosen to do here, because whatever it is, whether its sham contracting, the misuse of casualisation, the overuse or misuse of 457 applicants, it’s all about undermining job security and job conditions in this country. It has to stop.
JOURNALIST: Would Labor outlaw this sort of arrangement?
O’CONNOR: We’ll certainly look at the contract. We think it’s clearly an attempt to get around the current obligations under law. So we’d have to look at that and we’d have to see the details before we can comment. But, let me put it this way, any attempt by employers to undermine employment security and employment conditions will be examined and if there is any unlawful behaviour or improper behaviour, we’ll be responding very quickly to that issue. Because in the end, all Australian workers want is a decent pay. They want a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay. They want to be treated with dignity. And we do not support the Government allowing companies to treat workers this way.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask you something on an unrelated matter, you may or may not have seen The Courier Mail today, but the local Member for Dawson here has been referred to the AFP for possible bribery claims that have been made by GetUp to do with promised donations to turtle rehabilitation centres. Do you have any comments?
O’CONNOR: Well only that I understand that the Australian Electoral Commission has referred the matter to the Australian Federal Police, and as a former Minister for Justice who once was responsible for the federal police a remarkable body, I’ll leave it to them to determine the matter as to whether any law has been broken.
JOURNALIST: So you don’t have any comment on whether personal donations are appropriate or not?
O’CONNOR: I’ll just say again, the matter is being dealt with by the Australian Federal Police as is appropriate and it’s really for them to draw a conclusion on the conduct of Mr Christensen.
FRANK GILBERT, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR DAWSON: The situation at Hay Point with the BMA tug workers is a very, very grave concern for our region. And it continues a pattern that has happened continually under the Abbott-Turnbull Government - the increasing casualisation of the work force.
What people in this region need to understand is that Labor stands for a fair industrial relations system and for all workers to come under the Fair Work Commission so that their conditions can be negotiated under a system of industrial law, rules and regulations. What we have here is people who have worked, in this case 45 years – continually, unionists have been pulling the tugs, pulling ships in to export our coal from Hay Point. And now these workers have been thrown on the scrap heap. We understand that the company has the right to appoint a new tender, but that’s happened in the past and the workforces always been unionised and always been guaranteed of their conditions. What has happened in this instance is that the people who are going to be employed are going to be asked to work under what’s called a partnership arrangement. That’s a trustee of a trustee in the legal terms.
So what that means is, they’re not entitled to any working conditions like overtime, or conditions associated with superannuation and they have to be responsible for their own insurances and liability in terms of doing that. Can you imagine the invidious position that ordinary working people, who are skilled in maritime skills, are going to face where they have responsibility for looking after themselves and pulling in many tens of millions of tonnes of shipping to export many hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal, the liability that they face without the protection of the Fair Work Act and industrial legislation and the right to have a union represent them is just horrific.
In addition to that, many of these workers will not be re-employed because the company who has won the tender has said that they’re only going to employ people with Masters in engineering qualifications. Many of these people have qualifications. Jenna is an example. She did a traineeship in the industry, they’ve always promoted young people into the industry. Her qualifications are not a Masters certificate or a ships engineer’s certificate. So therefore, she’s unqualified according to these people to work in the industry even though she’s done years of training in this situation. That is a really terrible thing.
What we need to do is introduce people into our industries here. We need to have traineeships. We need to get young people involved and have a career path forward. This is the exact opposite of that. So, I think it’s a grave concern, and it’s about time we had a Federal Member and a Federal Government that stood up and protected these workers and ensured that this sort of thing did not happen.
JENNA CAMERLERI: Just to clarify that, I do have a Masters that I gained out of the traineeship, but that qualification - that was for the job. I can’t use that qualification at the next job with a new company. Just totally been wiped out of the process and can’t apply for it.
JOURNALIST: So are they saying to you that you can upskill? Or are they saying you’re just not qualified?
CAMERLERI: No, you’re not qualified. They haven’t even offered. You can’t change it. Nothing.
JOURNALIST: And so how long have you been in the industry?
CAMERLERI: Just over four years now, so yeah. I started out in a different industry, decided on a career change and knew that I had to get the skills. Do I did a traineeship so I could get the qualifications. And yeah, it’s been cut off at the knees.
JOURNALIST: Is it quite specialised the study that you’ve done? Is it transferable to broader industries?
CAMERLERI: No. It’s specialised. You can’t just come back on land and use them. Those skills don’t apply to any other industry really.
JOURNALIST: So, how does it make you feel after four years of getting that qualification?
CAMERLERI: It makes you angry. I just got a mortgage to live closer to my employment. So, up shit’s creek really.
JOURNALIST: Frank if I could just quickly ask you, just in relation to the sports precinct, Pierre said that he has very thoroughly briefed all sides of politics, what’s your understanding of the project and is it something that you see as critical community infrastructure?
GILBERT: Look I do see it as critical community infrastructure and Pierre is right, he’s done a good job of selling that concept and building it. And I’ve been involved when I was on council with developing that concept. I thoroughly support it, it’s something that I’ve spoken to Bill Shorten about. It’s something that I’ve spoken to Chris Bowen and Tony Burke about and I am totally committed to funding that and I think in due course I’ll be able to make an announcement as well about that. But I think it’s an excellent concept, because it involves the university being integrated with the community. It’s a community facility that will be open, and it just is, to me, a remarkable thing to have a university willing to share its facilities in that way with a community and it’s a great entree for young people into contact with the university. And I think it’s the sort of thing that will be very attractive. One of the problems we’ve had here is that a lot of our brightest young kids go away from the region and attend universities in other centres and never come back to the region. If we’re going to build the jobs of the future here, we need a well-trained well educated workforce, that’s why Labor has committed to Your Child Your Future, but also committed to making higher education affordable for people. No $100,000 degrees but supporting students here and this is just an adjunct to that and it will help greatly.
JOURNALIST: So would you be confident that we’ll see some announcement before we head to the polls on the 2nd of July?
GILBERT: Sure. I’d be confident in that, yes.
JOURNALIST: Great thank you.
JOURNALIST: With the mobile black funding?
GILBERT: The mobile black spot funding? Yes?
JOURNALIST: And of course we have a lot of money being thrown around and all the promises at the moment, in relations to the sports precinct, the mobile black spots funding, do you think George will be able to follow through with all of these commitments that he’s making?
GILBERT: To be truthful with you, it’s too little too late in the case of Mr Christensen and his black spot funding. He’s been in power for a whole term and we’re less than four weeks away from an election and he’s now making all these promises. He should have been working on this long before this.
It’s interesting I think black spot funding for mobile phones is an important issue and one that we’re committed to fixing but more than that we’ve got to have funding for our NBN. We’ve got an inferior NBN service since Mr Turnbull took over responsibility for it, instead of having fibre to the premises we’ve got fibre to the node and then the copper wire, nothing has happened since Labor’s roll out. The north side of Mackay is supposed to be done, but we’re still waiting for it. We’ve got out industrial centre over here in Paget without NBN and you know I’ve met with 12 business involved in IT delivery here and they tell me that Telstra because they’re selling the copper wire network to the NBN Co people can’t even get their copper wire service fixed in a timely way. They’re waiting weeks and weeks for Telstra to respond. And the reason is they’re not willing to fix that network, as old and antiquated as it is, while they’re going to be selling it in a short time to NBN Co. I think that’s a real tragedy, because many companies, and I know of at least one accounting firm, that have moved from Mackay to Melbourne because they couldn’t handle the work from overseas speedily enough to stay in business here, so we’re actually losing business.
JOURNALIST: Would you say then that George’s promises are just that, just promises?
GILBERT: Look, he’s come up with lots of promises as Mr O’Connor has said before he was running around here couple of weeks ago saying he had a $100 million infrastructure fund. Well we’ve seen none of it. This funding announcement today, which is a promise and I’m glad to see it, I welcome it, but that’s the first funding we’ve had from the Stronger Regions Program in Mackay at all. In rounds one and two we got nil. In round three we got a promise. Mr Christensen, if you judge him on his record is a dud.
JOURNALIST: So do you think he’s actually fighting for his seat? Of course they all fight for their seat but - ?
GILBERT: Look, the promise has come out, promises were made at the last election that we’d have a properly funded health care and education system what they have done to our funding here over the next 10 years is rip $465 million out of the agreement that all the states and Commonwealth signed up to. It was promised by Mr Abbott that he would retain the funding, and that’s never been replaced so that’s I think 55 doctors and 65 nurses and countless other allied health workers that are just ripped from our region. What we do have, and I think a commitment that we haven’t really seen enough of in the media, is when Mr Shorten came here he promised $35 million extra for Dawson schools to be delivered in the years 2017 and 2018. Now that is a major commitment. That is a commitment that will allow schools to establish STEM courses and really train people to transition to the jobs of the future. Thanks for coming.