Interview with Sharan Burrow

Sky News Sunday Agenda program, 2nd May 2010

Helen Dalley: Sharan Burrow, thanks for joining us.

Sharan Burrow: Good morning.

Helen Dalley: Now you’ve long argued for a lift in the superannuation guarantee levy
from the current 9% to 12% and higher. Do you think you’ll get your wish today?

Sharan Burrow: Well we’ve got fingers, toes, everything’s crossed, because frankly if we
don’t lift the rate, then adequacy is just not there. You’ll recall that our regional plans led
by Keating were to get to 15%. We still think that’s right, but we’ve long said that let’s
take it to a stepping stone of 12% and then let’s have a look at it. For high income
earners, that might indeed be enough. But we’re very worried that low income earners,
already not reaping the benefits of a system that was designed to give them dignity in
retirement, are missing out. They’re missing out in terms of tax treatment and we want
to see much fairer tax for poorer income earners. We particularly want to see that they
don’t pay more on Super than they do on their income. We also want to see the
threshold lifted, that’s particularly important for women. People earning less than $450 a
month currently don’t receive any Super and of course we want to see the rate lifted. So
there’s a range of things that need to be done, including some other measures like how
you look at additional savings for low income earners over time. But today’s a big day,
and 12%, we hope it’s going to be there.

Helen Dalley: Have you had a little whisper that it’s going to be in there?

Sharan Burrow: Look, I couldn’t possibly say, Helen. This afternoon all will be revealed,
but I notice that The Age is either speculating or reporting on sources, and so if the 12%
is there then I can assure you that we know that the next step will have been achieved.

Helen Dalley: It sounds like you have had the nod, but clearly Super and helping low
and middle income earners get some real tax benefit out of Superannuation looks like
being a focus for Ken Henry and the government. But what else do you want in terms of
you’ve just said some other things, but will you be happy if there is also a reduction in
the tax on contributions for low income earners who haven’t had the benefit of a tax
incentive like the high income earners have to pour money into Super?

Sharan Burrow: We certainly want to see a mix of policies for low income earners.
When you’ve got two thirds of Australians at age 55 who go to retirement with less than
$100,000 in their retirement savings, and in fact 25% with less than $50,000, then that’s
not going to last very long.

Helen Dalley: That’s what the average worker will retire on? $100,000? Or $50,000?

Sharan Burrow: Two thirds of Australian workers, so the vast majority, less than
$100,000. And 25%, the real people we need to have a good look at, less than $50,000.
So when you come to look at that and you know that over a working lifetime women’s
Superannuation accounts are much less then men’s on average in any occupation,
there’s a lot of work to do to get us to both an adequacy rate and a more equitable
system.

Sunday Agenda 2nd May 2010 Sharan Burrow

Helen Dalley: So what about those tax on contributions for low income earners?
Because if their marginal rate is somewhere around 15%, that’s what the tax on the
contributions into Super is, so there’s no tax incentive for them to put money into Super
as there has been for high income earners whose marginal rate might be in the 40%
area.

Sharan Burrow: Exactly, Helen. Our benchmark is that low income earners, in fact any
working person, shouldn’t be paying more tax on Super than they are on their income,
and so we know it’s been inequitable, we know that high income earners have benefited
substantially, and while nobody would be opposed to anybody being given incentives to
save, we’ve got to make sure that that doesn’t work against those who need to be
supported most through Superannuation savings in their retirement.

Helen Dalley: I guess you’d also support any help from the Henry Review for Small
Business, wouldn’t you? Because that employs so many workers. And would you also
support the supposed slug on wealthy mining company profits?

Sharan Burrow: Well I think there’s quite a different set of circumstances. Small
business to the extent that they have done it really hard during the global financial crisis,
working people, small business, they took the brunt of it, and indeed the cost of credit to
small business is still quite discriminatory in many areas. So we would certainly like to
see anything that will support job and income security, not just profits. But when you go
to corporate Australia, the big business end of town, then there are two issues here for
us. One is, we do not want to see corporations pay less tax. The contribution that
corporations make to our services, our infrastructure, that’s as important as the
contributions that working Australians make, and everybody should do their bit. In
regard to the resources rent tax or the income tax that’s liable to be designed for mining
companies, you’d have to say this is incredibly fair. Everybody else pays tax on their
income or their profits in the case of business, and yet these companies, the richest in
Australia, are not making the contribution to infrastructure and services that would see
them treated equitably with everybody else. So it’s certainly time to set that straight.

Helen Dalley: Certainly Andrew Forrest from Fortescue Mining says that you kill the
golden goose if you do that.

Sharan Burrow: Look at the profits. You’re going to tell me seriously that these
companies still won’t mine our natural resources? Of course they will. They make
massive profits from them. All we’re saying is they’ve got to make a fair contribution to
the infrastructure and services that are so much in deficit for the rest of the country.

Helen Dalley: Let’s look at some other areas. You launched a campaign this week
against the re-emergence of the coalition’s WorkChoices. Now why spend valuable
dollars campaigning against something that is not even a policy?

Sharan Burrow: Look, we wish that was the case, but unfortunately with Tony Abbott
back on the scene he’s such a conviction politician, he’s not taking any notice of the fact
that working Australians actually voted against his government last time because of
WorkChoices, and he’s on the record saying he’ll bring back individual contracts, he’ll
slash unfair dismissal rights, he just won’t call it WorkChoices. So of course we’ve
launched a campaign knowing full well that these were the policies that ripped off

Sunday Agenda 2nd May 2010 Sharan Burrow

working Australians, their take home pay was slashed, their conditions were shattered,
and indeed people were forced to sign contracts just to keep their job that they knew
would leave them worse off. So WorkChoices, whatever the name, never again. That’s
our campaign right up to the election.

Helen Dalley: Is it just scare mongering plain and simple?

Sharan Burrow: Look, I wish we didn’t have to spend the money. I wish the Liberal
leadership would listen to the Australian people. I wish they’d actually support rights at
work for working Australians. It’s beyond me why any Australian government would
want to not have a fair go all round, why they would want to give an individual, an
employer all of the power over people’s wages and conditions. Well, we’re saying we
will not have WorkChoices by any name and we know Australian people and their
families won’t vote for it.

Helen Dalley: How much is this campaign costing you?

Sharan Burrow: Well we’ve just got started, but what we have said is that while of
course it’s more like a three to six month campaign and not a three year campaign, we
have got adequate resources.

Helen Dalley: How much is that? How much will it cost?

Sharan Burrow: We’d rather spend it on something else, but if Tony Abbott is going to
rip off working people with WorkChoices elements again reintroduced, we’ll fight it as we
did last time.

Helen Dalley: So you’re not prepared to say the cost of it, but Tony Abbott actually said
just recently that it was a serious error for the Howard government to have dropped the
no disadvantage test in WorkChoices. He’s not going to do that again.

Sharan Burrow: Look, he’s already said he’ll introduce individual contracts, that means
that people are denied their right to bargain collectively. If they want a job they have to
sign up to what the employer’s prepared to offer. He’s going to slash fair dismissal
rights, that is fundamental job security for people in small business. These are the key
elements, and frankly last time we saw a safety net from the Liberals, you could drive a
truck through it. Nobody will trust them on this issue. That’s it plain and simple. So
whatever the name, however he dresses it up, we’re not going back to WorkChoices.
We’re very determined to build on what we have achieved. We’ve seen unfair dismissal
rights back in place, a safety net back in place, a robust system of awards, probably
notwithstanding some anomalies we’re working through amongst the best in the world.
We’ve got collective bargaining rights and an independent umpire. Now we need to do a
few more things. We need a senate that will work with the government to see that those
awful powers, those coercive criminal powers in the building and construction industry
are gone. We want to see the improvements Labor’s going to make to pay equity. We
want to see a range of things that can be done for working people to build on their rights.
But this month our message to Tony Abbott is don’t you dare vote against the paid
maternity leave bill in the senate in the next few weeks. That would just be the worst
betrayal of working women and indeed their families.

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Helen Dalley: Sharan Burrow, on that subject, wouldn’t you support Tony Abbott’s
proposed plan? After all, he’s talking about six months leave which is much better for
workers, and he also wants to slug big business, not taxpayers, to pay for it.

Sharan Burrow: Tony Abbott knows that he doesn’t have a plan. Big business has said
they won’t pay. Those businesses who’ve already got schemes in place through
bargaining with us, we respect that. They’ll be in addition to the government’s
contribution, so this is a man who speaks off the top of his head, who knows that what
he’s proposing is not affordable. Now of course over time we’ll work to see that it’s
improved, and if Tony Abbott wants to put a serious plan on the deck, people would
have a look at it. But what he’s doing at the moment is simply suggesting that he would
deny working Australians the 18 weeks, four months plus, for the two thirds of women
who have zip, zero, not one dollar of income when they go to have a baby. We want to
see that in place and our message is, don’t you dare vote against it, Tony Abbott.

Helen Dalley: You are moving on at the end of June to move into the international
arena. I’d like you to very briefly give a scorecard on the first term of the Rudd
government. Now there is a growing list of broken promises, and right at the top is
postponing the ETS. How seriously annoyed are you at the PM’s lack of political
courage to push this through?

Sharan Burrow: I’ve got no doubt that if you look at what the prime minister is saying,
that he’ll bring the ETS back, that he’s determined to push ahead with the MRIT and
indeed we’ve got the energy efficiency . . .

Helen Dalley: . . . He did say that, but in 2013.

Sharan Burrow: And we’ve got the energy efficiency task force in place which will go to
a serious climate action piece. Am I disappointed it’s been delayed? Absolutely. Every
day we delay puts us behind the eight ball in terms of those jobs in the green economy
that China and Europe and the US are taking advantage of. But what can you do
without a senate? One the one hand you’ve got the Liberals who won’t vote for an ETS
even though they know it’s in our interests in terms of business and jobs and
competitiveness in the long term, and the Greens on the other hand who won’t vote for it
until we get to some magic benchmark, who won’t let us make a start. I would
understand that the frustration of a prime minister faced with that is absolute, just as
ours is.

Helen Dalley: But Sharan Burrow, isn’t that just a good excuse? If Kevin Rudd had the
political courage, he would say we’re going to get this through after the next election, if
he’s assuming that he’s going to win. Isn’t that what you want?

Sharan Burrow: What we want to see is that senate shifted. It’s an ugly mess where
you can’t get anything for working people, for the economy in terms of climate action, for
services that are about equity in terms of the private healthcare rebate. You can’t get
any of those things through the senate. The government will need to go to election, they
will need to get a mandate and yes, we would absolutely argue for the earliest possible
timetable for a whole lot of climate action.

Helen Dalley: They’ve got a mandate, they got it at the last election, but this is now a
massive backflip, a backdown, whatever you want to call it. In fact, political observer

Sunday Agenda 2nd May 2010 Sharan Burrow

Paul Kelly has called it no less than the biggest broken promise by a prime minister in 50
years. It has damaged Kevin Rudd’s credibility, hasn’t it?

Sharan Burrow: Where were those commentators when the ETS was on the table last
year? Where were the business people that now say it should be past last year? It
needs to come back, absolutely. But can I say that if you’ve got Tony Abbott in the
Lodge next year, you’ll get no action, no ETS, no environmental understanding, and no
economic understanding that we need to be in the green economy, we need to be there
with a market mechanism that drives our business to be competitive, and that does
something to ameliorate the dangers of climate change. And I say that I would rather
have a Labor government who’s got a commitment to those things, than a Liberal
government with no commitment at all.

Helen Dalley: Are you saying that you are still pushing the PM to do a backflip on his
backflip and reintroduce the legislation sooner than 2013?

Sharan Burrow: What the government has said is that they will replace Kyoto with an
ETS, that the world will have to replace Kyoto with a mechanism that you’ve only got two
choices about, one’s a market mechanism and the other’s a carbon tax. I’ll back the
world in right now and Australia to get its act together by 2012 with a year or so delay on
a market mechanism, and Australia’s got to be at the heart of that, absolutely.

Helen Dalley: Sharan Burrow, we will have to leave it there. Thank you so much for
joining us this morning.

Sharan Burrow: Thank you.

Sunday Agenda 2nd May 2010 Sharan Burrow