DAVID CLARK: Brendan O’Connor, you and your colleagues, Stephen Jones and Sharron Bird have been holding jobs forums in the Illawarra and on the South Coast today. What kind of things have really struck you and stuck in your mind talking to people at those forums today?
BRENDAN O’CONNOR, SHADOW MINISTER FOR EMPLOYMENT AND WORKPLACE RELATIONS: A few things, Dave. Firstly the need to invest more in apprentices. There’s a real concern that young people are either not getting opportunities in apprenticeships or missing out or they’re not staying with it. We need to work out better incentives for employers and better incentives for people to stick – to get the apprenticeship. We have issues around youth unemployment. As you know, there are areas of youth unemployment north of 20 per cent and that’s just so unacceptable. We need to fix that and some people coming forward with ideas about what we should do, including creating incentives for employers engaging with local businesses, making sure we get the TAFE sector better funded to provide the skills needed for the current jobs and jobs of the future, so it has been really worthwhile talking to people about the opportunities here and what we can do ahead.
CLARK: I spoke to Stephen Jones earlier today and we touched on the apprenticeship and the TAFE situation. What does the Labor Party feel really needs to be done there to address the drop in apprenticeships and the situation with TAFE.
O’CONNOR: Look, one of the reasons Bill Shorten called a skills summit on the 17th March is to really closely examine what has been deficiencies in our vocational sector. So we do need to work out better ways to improve opportunities. We certainly need to work out how we connect skill acquisition with emerging areas of demand. So for example, businesses can’t find people with certain skills. We’re training people or educating people in areas where the demand is lessening not increasing, so there’s a mismatch between training, education and employment opportunities, which is becoming increasingly obvious.
CLARK: When it comes to those opportunities, Mr O’Connor, Michaelia Cash has been talking about how there’s been an increase in jobs. However, the devil really is in the detail when it comes to the numbers, isn’t it?
O’CONNOR: It is actually. Look, we welcome any job, but the problem is there’s been a very significant decline in full time employment. Yes, there are people who want to have part time work and that’s good. But many people that are working part time would prefer to work full time. We’re at an historic high in terms of the number of Australians – now over 1 million Australians are looking for more work but cannot find it. So you have to look closely at the statistics. There’s been 56,000 full time jobs nationally that have disappeared this year. In fact last month there was a fall of 44,000 full time jobs nationally. Now, that will be reflected in some way here. So there’s a lot to be done, really, but we can’t just have a country offering part time work when people have got full time lives. They’ve got big mortgages, or they are paying the rent, looking after their families etc.
CLARK: And the exploitation of young workers too, Mr O’Connor, we’ve heard in the news reports over the last little while of certain businesses that have not quite been looking after their younger workers. What can we do to address those concerns too?
O’CONNOR: It’s scandalous the scale of some of the forms of exploitation. 7-Eleven of course have made admissions it underpaid its workforce by at least $100 million. There have been allegations against Domino’s Pizza as well as others. Firstly you need to increase the penalties. Not when there is inadvertent underpayment but when there is systemic, intentional underpayment, because not only is it unfair to workers, it’s also unfair to the majority of employers that do the right thing, so we can’t let it continue.
We actually moved a Private Member’s Bill last parliamentary term to address that but the Government didn’t take it up. We also probably need more resources to enforce the new penalties; that would help. And I think we do need other things too such as looking at regulating labour hire companies, making sure people can’t be called contractors if they are employees. There is a whole range of things that need to be done in combination to redress what appears to be wide spread exploitation in our labour market .
CLARK: So Mr O’Connor , just in wrapping things up this afternoon. The three of you would have quite a bit to take back to Bill Shorten to advise him on and give him more of a complete picture perhaps on what’s actually happening at the coal face. For want of a better expression.
O’CONNOR: That’s right . Some of the things that came up today Dave, reinforced what we knew, but then there were other matters that came up that were completely novel ideas, both in terms of what you do, maybe just for here, but sometimes we could replicate ideas that come up locally, nationally. So we’re trying to complement our national policies with local initiatives before the next election. I think the Job Forums we held today are going help us do that.