31 October 2011 in Media
To watch the video of this interview, please click here.
David Lipson:
Now to talk a little bit more in depth about the situation with Qantas, I am joined in the studio here by Richard Marles and Jamie Briggs. Thank you both very much for your time. First to you, Jamie. What do you make of this result? Is it a win for the government, as the government lawyers were indeed pushing for what the eventual result was?
Jamie Briggs:
Well Julia Gillard, this is a dispute of her own making. She changed the Act three years ago, she says she is immensely proud of that change, and in part of that change she allowed matters outside of the employment relationship to be part of a dispute, and therefore the unions have had all this power to continue this dispute going to reach this point. So people sat in airports over the weekend because Julia Gillard gave the unions the power to get to this point. In addition to that, Julia Gillard failed to act when she knew that this dispute was getting to this point. She had every opportunity under her own Act that she is immensely proud of to take action and she didn’t. She failed to do so. So what we have got is a situation where the government has created the circumstances that big disputes like this are back in town. Labor is back in town. Big disputes are back in town. They wanted this. Their Act is working as they intended.
Lipson:
Well Tony Abbott hasn’t been too forceful in blaming the policy for this. He says it is a failure of leadership rather than anything to do with Labor Government’s workplace laws. Do you agree with him on that?
Briggs:
Well he is right – this is a failure of leadership. She knew, Alan Joyce said this morning, just moments ago, that he had told the government that this was an option, that this dispute was killing his company. The unions’ role in the workplace was to represent workers, not to manage a company. Now that’s the nub of the TWU and the other unions claim in this, is to become part of the management of the company. It is just simply ridiculous and ludicrous in a modern economy that they would pursue this claim, and that the law would allow them to do so.
Lipson:
You are quoted in papers this morning as saying that the policy though is to blame, that really it is Fair Work Australia that has lead to all of this. Do you, obviously calling for this policy to be wound back, to be changed?
Briggs:
What we are saying is quite obviously we are in the situation because the law was changed. The matters which can be debated and that can be discussed in bargaining periods are matters which relate to an employment arrangement are now so broad in this discussion. Judith Sloan, Professor Judith Sloan, made this point this morning. Professor Andrew Stewart who helped write the government’s Act said two weeks ago that the government should be taking action under their own Act. He knew this was coming. Everybody knew that this was coming. This is a fault of Julia Gillard who set this situation up and then failed to act when she needed to.
Lipson:
Richard Marles, we heard Chris Evans saying earlier that, and Julia Gillard has said the same this morning that really they didn’t have much more of an option as to what they, what action they took. But there was adequate time for the government to intervene directly. Why wasn’t that done and would it have changed things?
Richard Marles:
Well first of all, David if I can just comment on what Jamie said. What we have really just heard then is a pretty unequivocal call from Jamie for a return to Work Choices. I mean what we see is using this dispute as a way to get right back into that industrial relations debate so that we can be reintroducing Work Choices. That is what we’ve heard from Jamie now, which is pretty amazing. Look there has been changes to the laws to promote fairness for everybody in the industrial relations system so there is basic minimum standards. But if you’re talking about the framework of how you deal with an industrial dispute, this is essentially unchanged...
Briggs:
No it’s not true.
Marles:
...so it would have been exactly the same under Work Choices as now.
Briggs:
No that’s not true at all.
Marles:
But what we’ve got from Jamie and from the opposition is a desire to use this dispute to reintroduce the debate around Work Choices, because that’s what they would do if they ever got back into government. On the issue of whether or not we should have acted under section 431, I mean the Prime Minister has made it very clear – had we gone down that path, which is the path which wasn’t used during the maritime dispute, which has never been used before, then right now, instead of sitting here this morning knowing that the industrial action by Qantas and by the unions has been brought to an end, we would be in the middle of a whole lot of legal controversy about whether or not the threshold for the use of that section had been met. So this was the speediest way to go about it. I mean the government discovered at 2 o’clock on Tuesday that this was about to occur, within 36 hours the industrial action has been brought to an end, within 48 hours we are going to see planes flying back. When there are industrial flames we douse them. When the other mob were in power, under the Howard Government, they actually lit the fires with the maritime dispute and then put petrol right on them and had disputes going on for months.
Lipson:
Why can’t this be a trigger for some debate from the opposition or from the government as well about any amendments that may need to be made to the Fair Work Act or any other areas of workplace relations? Why does it always have to come back to Work Choices, and the debate about that?
Briggs:
They want to run a scare campaign. They are desperate to run a scare campaign.
Marles:
Jamie is very keen to use it as a trigger and I’m very interested to hear what Jamie has to say and I think what we’ve heard from Jamie is that they would go to Work Choices if they could because what they want is to see the Act amended.
Briggs:
What we have got here is another Labor Minister who has forgotten that he is a Labor Minister and not a union official. We saw that yesterday with Bill Shorten who rolled up to Fair Work Australia, I mean he knew there were two cameras in the small vicinity so Bill was there, sat in the room for some unknown reason, acting like a union official. You had the same with Anthony Albanese...
Marles:
He was representing the government.
Briggs:
No he was not; you had a lawyer representing the government, what a load of.
Marles:
Yes, but you have people in the room (inaudible)...he was representing the government.
Briggs:
You had Anthony Albanese on Saturday just boots and all after Alan Joyce and Qantas. You had Ed Husic on Twitter on Saturday night. You had Jones from, the Member for Illawarra, Steven Jones on Saturday night getting stuck into Alan Joyce as well. These guys, they never leave their union boss title. That is what they are. So what they are desperate with is, they know they have created these circumstances. The Act is acting like they wanted it to. This was the intention of the Fair Work Act, is to have these big disputes. They wanted to give unions these powers.
Lipson:
But the unions that have been slapped down on this haven’t they? They have been told they can’t strike anymore.
Briggs:
And how much cost? After how many months of pursuing claims which could just never be included in an employment relationship. Unions cannot manage companies. Now these guys have allowed them through the Act. When Richard says the previous workplace relations law was exactly the same as this – that is a lie. That is not true. There were certain matters which pertained to the employment relationship which could be debated as part of bargaining –this is now broader.
Marles:
Unions don’t seek to manage companies, what we do know is that the Liberal Party can’t manage the industrial relations system. They couldn’t when they were in government.
Briggs:
You are saying this today? After the weekend.
Marles:
I am absolutely saying it today because this is actually a victory for, it is a victory for the tens of thousands of people out there that will now be able to fly. It is a victory for the tourism industry. But what we have seen is a government acting as soon as it had noticed that there was an issue. Within 36 hours the action has been brought to a close. Within 48 hours planes will be back in the air. Compare that to the maritime dispute. Months and months of the wharfs being shut down, because the Howard Government actually incited the dispute. They incited the dispute and they dowsed it with petrol.
Lipson:
Ok gentlemen, very sorry but unfortunately, I’d like to keep going with that, but we are out of time.
ENDS