Radio Interview - 6PR Perth Radio Mornings with Gary Adshead

E&OE TRANSCRIPT
6PR Perth
Mornings with Gary Adshead
Thursday, 8 February 2024

Subjects: Bigger Tax Cuts for More Australians, Closing Loopholes 2.0 Legislation, Interest Rates, Defence Force, Nemesis ABC Series

HOST, GARY ADSHEAD: Alrighty, let's go to Canberra now, Matt Keogh is standing by, of course.

MINISTER FOR VETERANS’ AFFAIRS AND DEFENCE PERSONNEL, MATT KEOGH: Hey Gary, nice to be with you.

GARY ADSHEAD: And I think Andrew Hastie's kind of sprinting. Is that right?

MINISTER KEOGH: Look, I understand after people watching Nemesis on Monday, they might get worried if Andrew Hastie is hidden from view, maybe with other Western Australians plotting coups for the Liberal Party. But he's actually in an important meeting with the Prime Minister of PNG, who has just done an address to the House and Senate this morning, so I'll forgive him. He's not plotting anything right now, as far as I'm aware, and I'm sure he'll be with us very shortly.

GARY ADSHEAD: All right, nice. That was lovely done. I was going to ask about Nemesis in a minute, but I won't. Hey, first up, though, just on the right to disconnect, will your staff have the right to disconnect? They'll say, that's enough, we're going home and we're not going to be answering any of your emails or your phone calls.

MINISTER KEOGH: They will have the same right that will apply to everybody and that we actually see applies right now to lots of people in their enterprise agreements. This is really about the law catching up with the 21st century. You'd understand this, Gary. I mean, we're now in a world where we're carrying around this device in our pocket where you can just get a phone call, you can get a text message, you get emails. And we need to make sure that the law reflects that. When you go home and you're finished, you shouldn't have to be responding to all of those things. Doesn't mean that you can't get a call to say, “Hey, can you come and cover a shift” or anything like that, but you don't have to respond. And that's important for people. And as I say, it reflects what we're already seeing in enterprise agreements in workplaces around the country. Like, I know the West Australian, for example, another media organisation, they have a clause in their enterprise agreement that's basically exactly the same as what the law is now going to be. And they've got journalists, obviously, in WA and over here in Canberra, and they are able to make the time zone work and everything else.

GARY ADSHEAD: Can't wait to see how that works.

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, it's already working. That's what I'm saying. They've already got this in their enterprise agreement. Lots of companies already have this in enterprise agreements, so it's not actually new and all it's doing is saying - it's not saying you can't contact your employee, it's saying the employee doesn't have to respond if it's not in their working hours to be doing that.

GARY ADSHEAD: Why do we need a law then if it's already sort of happening in a common sense way?

MINISTER KEOGH: Because we want to make sure it applies to all workers, not just where they've been able to negotiate that into an agreement. And as I say, it's recognising we're now in an environment where it's not just a case of “can I reach someone on their home phone?”, but we're carrying this device around, we got text messages all the time and emails and the expectation is not that you sit there doing your emails all night when that's not your paid time. But if you want to do that, and we also have workplaces where we apply a lot of flexibility as well. People who leave the workplace early and then go home and do that work because that works for them and it works for their boss. This doesn't stop that at all.

GARY ADSHEAD: Do you agree then that teachers should be the first ones to take advantage of this and make sure that the right to disconnect applies to parents that might be emailing them after 3:15?

MINISTER KEOGH: Yeah. So, the teacher thing is actually what's in their enterprise agreement, that's got nothing to do with this law. And I do agree that teachers should have a right where they don't have to be responding to emails all hours of the day and night. And I've got communication from my school that says parents should not expect teachers to, they've got up to 48 hours to respond to your email and they'll respond to your emails during ordinary working hours for the teachers and they've set parameters around, you can send the email to the teacher whenever you want, but there's reasonable expectations about them responding. I mean, they're in the classroom all day with our children doing really important work, teaching our kids, and they use the hours either side of that to respond to emails and do a lot of preparation for classroom time and all of those things. And that's fair and reasonable and they'll respond to your email, but don't expect them to stay up till midnight to respond to every email instantaneously. That's reasonable, people should get some time off as well.

GARY ADSHEAD: That's my point. It's all reasonable, it's all common sense. So, why do we need a law? Who are the people that will be brought in under this law? Because it's a law. It's a pretty strong thing to do, to create a law.

MINISTER KEOGH: No, it's a really good question, Gary, and it's because what we do find is that some employees are being contacted by their employers, being required to respond to communication from their employers all hours of the day and night in an unreasonable fashion. And if they don't respond, then they're experiencing retribution. And all this law says is - it's not saying your employer can't send you an email, can't send you a text message - what it's saying is you don't have to respond at 10:00 at night outside your working hours to that communication. And if you don't, the employer can't take that against you, they can't have retribution against you for doing that. That's all.

GARY ADSHEAD: Unless the employer has a reasonable case to have sent you that email and then that has to go off and be argued.

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, that's the case with all employment conditions.

GARY ADSHEAD: Exactly. So, if someone's unreasonably targeting me after hours, I could say, listen, I've had enough of this, I'm going to take it to the Fair Work Commission. I could do that.

MINISTER KEOGH: And all this makes clear is that if an employer takes action against you for you not responding to communication that's out of hours, it's making very clear that that is unreasonable contact by the employer. That's all it clarifies. So, it's pretty simple.

GARY ADSHEAD: I don't know whether Andrew's getting closer to the door of the studio that you're in at the moment, but I do need to ask you about what the Financial Review is reporting in your sort of role, of course, as Defence Industries Minister. I wonder whether you have noticed that there's a strain between the Defence Minister Richard Marles, and Defence Forces as is being reported.

MINISTER KEOGH: Well, I'm Defence Personnel, not Defence Industry.

GARY ADSHEAD: Sorry.

MINISTER KEOGH: No, that's fine. Look, I saw the article. I mean, I think the clear thing is that we inherited a situation where we had a Defence budget that was massively over programmed. The previous Government made lots of media releases and announcements about things they said they were going to acquire for Defence. They didn't actually fund any of it. 

And that's meant that we've had to go through a process of reprioritising the Integrated Investment Plan and that we've got to do the Surface Fleet Review, which is under consideration by government at the moment. And that's the other thing is we're a government of proper process. We're not a government of “just announce stuff by media release don't bother funding it in the budget”. We've done reviews. We are considering those reviews properly. They go through proper processes, like the National Security Committee of Cabinet, like the Expenditure Review Committee of Cabinet, to make sure that we are able to deliver on what is one of the most important jobs of a government, which is defending our country, making sure our Defence Force has what it needs, and addressing the 21st century priorities of what a Defence Force needs. 

In the context of the Defence Strategic Review, which was very clear about us facing some of the most complex set of geostrategic circumstances since the Second World War, and that we can't carry on in sort of business as usual of a Defence Force that the previous Government had been setting up, which wasn't going to meet those needs. So, we've got some heavy lifting work to do because of what we inherited, and we're doing that and we're doing it in a proper process way.

GARY ADSHEAD: All right, I might take a break now and see whether that gives time for Andrew to arrive in the studio. I've got Matt Keogh on the line. We're waiting for Andrew Hastie. It's 17 minutes to 10. Back soon.

[AD BREAK]

GARY ADSHEAD: Was it hard for you to accept the stage three tax cuts in the way that the Prime Minister ended up putting them?

SHADOW MINISTER FOR DEFENCE, ANDREW HASTIE: Look, it's a reality that Labor won the last election and they can set an agenda and they put their legislation forward. We're going to allow it through because we want to see Australians get a tax cut. We still, however, are committed to an aspirational tax regime. Labor is committed to a redistributional tax regime. They want to take more money from you. We want to give Australians more of their money back so they have freedom to choose how they spend it, whether it be on school fees or private health cover or on paying their mortgage or indeed taking a holiday. We want more Australians, particularly with bracket creep, to have more money in their back pocket.

MINISTER KEOGH: The problem with all of that, Gary, is that what Andrew's just told you is that they're going to support it. But they've spent the whole day yesterday and today in Parliament arguing against it. They say they're for aspiration. Apparently, they're only for aspiration if you're in the absolute top tax bracket, whereas we are about supporting providing bigger tax cuts for more Australians and ensuring that all Australians get a tax cut.

GARY ADSHEAD: You didn't say that, Labor's - 

MINISTER KEOGH: That's a critical difference.

GARY ADSHEAD: You didn't say it before the last election, though.

MINISTER KEOGH: Yeah, we've been over that. We acknowledge that. We acknowledge that. And you know what? We found a better way. We acknowledge the change of circumstances that have occurred over the five years since the stage three tax cuts were legislated by Scott Morrison. And we found a better way in a period where people are really struggling with cost of living to give them more of their money back, to give every taxpayer money back by giving them a tax cut, that's pretty important right now. And we are seeing inflation falling, and that's a good thing. And we are seeing real wage growth start to occur, and that's also a good thing. And we're delivering every Australian taxpayer a tax cut, which the Liberals say they're going to vote for, that's good, but they're still arguing against it. And you just heard Andrew arguing against it just now.

ANDREW HASTIE: Matt, you've had a good chunk of time, so if you don't mind.

GARY ADSHEAD: We got about 30 seconds.

ANDREW HASTIE: Yeah, look, sure, we're going to support Labor's tax plan. We remain committed to an aspirational tax regime, particularly with bracket creep. People are paying 27 per cent more income tax under Labor, largely due to inflation. But what this goes to ultimately is the Prime Minister's integrity, or lack thereof, because 100 times since the election he committed to the stage three tax cuts. So, the question the Australian people need to ask is, can they trust this bloke? I don't think they can. That's a problem for Labor. All right, so let's not forget that.

GARY ADSHEAD: Okay, guys, thanks very much. Thanks for making the sprint, Andrew. Appreciate your time, both of you.

ANDREW HASTIE: I've got good cardio, Gary, pleasure.

GARY ADSHEAD: Good cardio. It's four minutes to ten. That was Matt Keogh and Andrew Hastie.

END

Open Arms – Veterans & Families Counselling provides 24/7 free confidential crisis support for current and ex-serving ADF personnel and their families on 1800 011 046 or the Open Arms website. Safe Zone Support provides anonymous counselling on 1800 142 072. Defence All-Hours Support Line provides support for ADF personnel on 1800 628 036 or the Defence Health Portal. Defence Member and Family Helpline provides support for Defence families on 1800 624 608