Source: Australian Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry
Georgia Stynes:
Our guest is the Labor Member for Fenner, Dr Andrew Leigh, who has been listening into this previous conversation and joins us. Good afternoon.
Andrew Leigh:
Good afternoon Georgia, great to be with you.
Stynes:
Yeah, nice to be with you too. Do you acknowledge that there were some forgotten people in this Budget that a lot of the measures seem to be aimed towards, well, either people who are paying tax or business?
Leigh:
Well in our previous Budgets, we’ve raised the JobSeeker rate, we’ve increased Commonwealth Rent Assistance by over 40 per cent. We have prioritised those who are doing it tough by supporting increases to the minimum wage and supporting increases to aged care workers and early childhood workers.
Our tax cuts are directed towards everyone. So, everyone earning over $45,000 receives that same benefit over the 2 tax cuts. Somewhere around $10 a week in conjunction with our previous tax cut totals around $50 a week or $2,500 a year. So, we’ve looked to deliver egalitarian reforms at the same time as focusing on the long run productivity challenge that our predecessors left us with.
Stynes:
To be fair, that that would buy you a democracy sausage though at election day, which is partly what’s being said is that this looked like an election budget. There weren’t lots of big things, big picture things.
Leigh:
Look, I think $50 a week is pretty significant. And you put that alongside the energy bill rebates, that $75 off each of your next 2 quarterly bills. The work we’ve done around cheaper medicines, cheaper childcare and housing affordability through our work with the ACT Government and other state and territory governments, historic investment in housing, all of that is focused on making us a more productive economy and at the same time helping to keep our lid on prices.
Leigh:
You live in Canberra, you’ve lived in Canberra for a long time and I know you spend a lot of time out in the community ACTCOSS, Vinnies, lots of agencies – Marymead Catholic Care are telling us that they’re seeing people come through their doors that have never come through their doors before. People that used to donate to them are now queuing up for food banks. Things have changed.
Don’t you think this was an opportunity? The Budget was an opportunity to help those people struggling with the cost of living?
Leigh:
Last week the ACT Labor team was out at Marymead in Lyneham around an announcement that we’d made of investing in housing for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence. We pioritise those social spends and social supports in this Budget, as we have the productivity boosting reforms. We’re aiming to be an inclusive government that makes these investments for everyone.
And I don’t think there has been an Australian Government, certainly in my lifetime, that has given so much of a priority to Canberra. Through the investments in the national cultural institutions, the National Security Precinct, the work in the War Memorial, prioritising the public service over outsourced consultants and contractors and giving the ACT our fair share of infrastructure spending, which you see strongly reflected in this Budget with the investments in the Monaro Highway, Gundaroo Drive and the like.
Stynes:
Do you acknowledge that Canberra has changed? That we are seeing more people on the streets and there are people struggling, that we are in a cost‑of‑living crisis?
Leigh:
Look, I think there’s certainly cost‑of‑living challenges. Inflation is now back within the Reserve Bank’s target band and we’ve done that for the first time in Australian history without smashing the labour market. Previously, we had a big surge in joblessness as Australia sought to bring down prices. We haven’t done that this time. We’ve got inflation under control while maintaining a historically low rate of unemployment – the lowest average rate of unemployment of any government in 50 years.
The UK has gone into recession, New Zealand has gone into recession. Other countries have suffered quarters of negative growth as they’ve sought to tame inflation. Australia has tamed inflation while maintaining full employment. And that is so important to the social equity goals that you’re talking about there Georgia.
Stynes:
Dr Andrew Leigh is our guest. He’s the Labor Member for Fenner. Just on the text line, one listener says ‘What about a Newstart hike? Why didn’t that happen? Another listener has said ‘Yeah, the people currently living in tents in and around Canberra will get cold comfort from this Budget’. Another listener has said ‘long‑term unemployment really needed more analysis. They need to be looking at why this is happening. There’s a huge resource there if the government could help them do courses lead to degrees, we could get them into aged care or others that need employees.’
I just want to, I know you’re very busy – just before we run out of time. One of the things that you’re quite passionate about is this non‑compete clause. Can you just explain to people how this will work? The changes?
Leigh:
One in 5 workers are subject to a non‑compete which makes it hard for them to move to a better job. People like the 17‑year‑old dance instructor who found herself harassed at work and then when she moved to a competing dance studio, found herself being threatened for breach of contract by her former employer. These non‑compete clauses are dampening down wages and decreasing productivity.
And so we’re going to be getting rid of non‑compete clauses for workers earning under $175,000. That’s going to be great for wages. Those affected workers will see on average a 4 per cent wage boost and it’ll be great for productivity. It’ll make it easier to start a business because in a full employment economy you need to hire workers from other firms if you’re going to get a new business off the ground.
Stynes:
How many people does that actually affect in Canberra? Is that dancer an example here in Canberra or is that a federal example?
Leigh:
That’s an example from interstate, but certainly in the ACT I would expect that it would be around one in 5 workers affected as well. You know, these aren’t just high paid executives who are being affected. These are gardeners, cleaners, security guards, early childhood workers who are signing up to standard form employment agreements Georgia, which contain non‑compete clauses making it harder for them to move to a better job.
Job mobility is a really important part of a productive economy. It’s a really important part of an economy in which wages grow. Labor wants people to earn more and keep more of what they earn.
Stynes:
Just to clarify though, this is also working, you know, when you’ve got people you would know too, people who work in say banking or in other areas or a lawyer and they, they resign and then they’re sort of between another job, they can’t go and work for another law firm between that period. Is that what you’re talking about or are you talking about other things?
Leigh:
If they earn less than $175,000 yes, they’ll be caught. And I should be clear Georgia, for any of your listeners who are running small businesses, those small businesses still have the protection of intellectual property laws, of non‑disclosure agreements. So they can hold their secrets but they can’t bind their staff to the desk.
Stynes:
When we talk about – because just back on that for a minute. That happens in the public service, obviously that happens in corporate jobs. But you’re saying the cap is how much they earn, is that right?
Leigh:
That’s right. And so, this is about getting wage growth going. We’ve seen a decline in job mobility under the former government and that may well be one of the reasons why we saw such lousy wage outcomes, why real wages were falling so sharply when we took office.
Allowing people to move to a better job is really fundamental. It’s a question of freedom and opportunity and it’s also a way of ensuring that people get the wage gains they deserve.
Stynes:
There’s quite a few texts coming through just before you go too. One person says, ‘But the point is we have historically high rates of homelessness in this country’. Another listener has said ‘These tax cuts are a huge waste of money’.
Spreading across Australia reduces its impact per person. Wouldn’t it have been better for this huge amount to go into one or 2 areas – say health, say education, say homelessness. Do you think that might have been a better look if that money had actually gone there?
Leigh:
Well, health, education, homelessness are all big priorities for us. In education, you’ve got the 3 day childcare guarantee and the national schools funding agreement that we’ve now signed up to with all states and territories. With health, we’ve been moving to get cheaper medicines. Reforms in this Budget will bring down the cost of PBS medicines from $31 to $25.
In housing, we’ve been making bigger investments in social housing than any previous Australian Government through the Housing Australia Future Fund and our work with the states and territories on dealing with planning and zoning. So, all of those areas are big priorities for the government and were front and centre in the Budget last night.
Stynes:
There is criticism that this was a cobbled together Budget. The idea that this is fit for an election, but it wasn’t expected to be delivered. Is that true? Was this cobbled together?
Leigh:
Not at all. This is a Budget that delivers tax cuts which the Liberals and Nationals today voted against, and which focuses on long‑term reform such as getting competition policy going again. It’s got reforms which will allow electricians to work across state and territory borders. Really important for a sparkie in Queanbeyan to be able to do a job in O’Connor.
And it’s got reforms which are focused on investing for the long run. Increasing the funding to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, so it can do more innovative work in tackling climate change and that decarbonisation challenge.
Stynes:
We’ll have to leave it there I’m sorry but thank you so much for your time, I appreciate it.
Leigh:
Thank you, Georgia.
Stynes:
Thank you. That’s Dr Leigh there, Labor Member for Fenner.
MIL OSI News –