I had a debate with Joel Fitzgibbon last week about Industrial Relations and what One Nation has done to improve certainty and cut administrative burdens for small businesses.

Transcript

[Marcus Paul] All right now, this was something different this morning. We normally on a Thursdays, you know catch up with One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts. Now Malcolm has been targeted by Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon. Joel, who sits on the back bench these days. Joel’s always stuck between a rock and a hard place. I think when you’ve got Labor, possibly going down a probably a far greener future, than what some would like. And there are many suggesting that Labor have forgotten about the grassroots of the party and that is looking after coal miners and workers. Anyway, the story, and I think it was in the Herald up there in Newcastle, “Miner shaft the hunter coal industry in uproar over One Nation backing the government’s controversial IR bills” Both the gentlemen in question are on the programme. Good morning to you. First of all, Joel.

[Joel Fitzgibbon] Good morning, Marcus

[Marcus] And Malcolm Roberts from One Nation morning Malcolm?

[Malcolm Roberts] Good day Marcus. Good morning.

[Marcus] All right. Now gentlemen.

[Malcolm] Good morning Joel

[Joel] Good morning Malcolm.

[Marcus] All right. Class action lawyers and the CFMEU are considering the possibility of a high court challenge to the gutted IR bill that passed through parliament on Monday with its clauses on casual employment. The only sections to survive. Now Joel to you first you’ve come out in the press and it’s been reported basically saying that Scott Morrison has no more reliable vote in the Senate. And that of One Nation’s Malcolm Roberts, you say it’s a slap in the face for coal miners in the Hunter. Joel?

[Joel] Well, that’s true Marcus and it’s not just Joel Fitzgibbon saying it. It’s the Coal Miners Union and it’s coal miners themselves, including Mr. Simon Turner, who Malcolm has been using as a very fine example of those who’ve been disadvantaged by the law as it stands but Malcolm has been using as a person. He says he’s been trying to help but Simon Turner himself today is in the financial review saying that he’s disgusted and feels betrayed by One Nation’s actions in the Senate in supporting this industrial relation bill which is not going to make it better for coal miners. It’s going to make it worse for our coal miners.

[Marcus] All right. Malcolm ,respond to that.

[Malcolm] Sure. The greens have no better and more reliable asset in the in the parliament than the labor party. And Joel is wearing the consequences of that because they’ve lost touch with the working workers all around the country, lost touch with small business. And what we’re doing here is we’re protecting workers. We’re protecting small business. Now, Simon Turner, I’ve had a wonderful relationship with him. He is a wonderful person. Yet I recognise he’s under enormous pressure. He went silent on us a few weeks ago. Silent on a lot of people in the Hunter, under a lot of pressure. We then kept working for him in the parliament and in public, and he was energised again. And we actually we actually drove a solution for him, a settlement that’s that’s that’s given him a substantial benefit.

[Marcus] I think we’ve lost. Hang on for a second Malcolm. I think we might’ve lost Joel there. We might’ve lost Joel. We’ll just go back to, is that you you still? No, we’ve lost them both. All right. For some reason, Justin we’ve lost them. So we’ll take a break and come back to that.

SM super network news, news, wake up, get up, Marcus Paul in the morning.

[Marcus] All right? It’s quarter to eight. My apologies to, to our listeners. So obviously I think Joel’s calling from the Hunter this morning and there’s obviously a lot of water in the area. I think we’ve got both gentlemen back. Joel, are you there?

[Joel] Yes I’m here Marcus

[Marcus] Perfect. And Malcolm you’re back.

[Malcolm] Yes, mate. Ready to go?

[Marcus] All right. So, I think we were halfway between what you were responding with Malcolm. So please go ahead.

[Malcolm] Yes. You know, it’s very important to understand that Simon Turner has been bashed around for six years by the CFMEU in the Hunter Valley. And I always say Hunter Valley CFMEU because the rest of the union is fine, but Simon tells me and he’s said it very emotionally and strongly. The Hunter Valley CFMEU is disgraceful. He dislikes Joel intensely because he’s written to Joel six times to help him with these problems. And I can get through the problems in a little while but six times never once has Joel responded. I’ve written to Joel personally in parliament and asked him to get involved, come and understand the issues, refuse to even acknowledge me. Plus Joel has now misrepresented this situation several times. I don’t know why he keeps hiding what the Hunter Valley CFMEU has done.

[Marcus] All right. What has the Hunter Valley CFMEU done? Malcolm

[Malcolm] Very simple. They’ve gutted mining in the Hunter Valley because first of all, the Hunter Valley, the award for the black coal mining industry does not include, it was signed in 2010, does not include casuals. Now the union, what they did they used to be a hirer of casuals. They used to be a Labor hire firm themselves the Hunter Valley CFMEU, they sold that, made a profit but they stayed in the business. And by made the enterprise agreements that cut out the award, cut out award provisions. They created a casual within the enterprise agreement. That’s the first thing they did. now because that went against the award. There was no casual conversion. The union itself created casuals. The union itself locked casuals into permanent casualization. And not only that, they undermined the pay of these casuals by creating a category that was 40% under…

[Marcus] All right.

[Malcolm] The same, the enterprise agreement unbacked by the owners on the same mine, same job, 40% less pay.

[Marcus] Okay. Joel, your response to that?

[Joel] Well, that’s just all rubbish. Marcus, why would I respond to Malcolm? Malcolm Roberts’ calls for me to work with him, when I know that he’s walking both sides of the street as proven with his vote in the Senate last week. And I did respond to Simon Turner and who, by the way he’s not a constituent of mine. That doesn’t matter because I’m here to help anyone that I can. But all this is very simple. The courts have ruled in both the skene case and confirmed, and the rossato case, that the mining companies have been doing the wrong thing by mine workers, paying people different pay rights for the same job. By using the usual use of, by using casualization. Now these court cases effectively representing the situation.

[Marcus] Hang on Malcolm, just let him finish.

[Joel] And now the decision and Malcolm Roberts voted for the bill which overturns effectively the court’s decision. It’s as simple as that Marcus.

[Marcus] All right. So just, just in a nutshell, in relation to what it is before the government, at the moment in relation to the industrial relations bill your main concerns in a nutshell, Joel please about why Malcolm has sided with the government on this.

[Joel] My main concern of course, is that after the union spent a lot of money representing coal miners in the courts. To fix this problem, Malcolm has now used his vote in the Senate to back a government bill which now effectively nullifies the decision of the court putting our coal miners back in the position where we started. And that’s a slap in the face for our coal miners. Not my words, the words of the coal mining union. And of course, Mr. Simon Turner, who Malcolm has purported to represent but now says he feels betrayed by Malcolm and One Nation.

[Marcus] All right Malcolm.

[Malcolm] Well, it’s very simple. The coal mining union in the Hunter Valley, actually undermined the workers award and the workers’ entitlements. They signed off on the enterprise agreement. Joel cannot run away from that. That is fact. They’ve done it repeatedly. 300, more than 300 enterprise agreements that the union has signed. That’s the first thing, the second thing is that the rossato case did not, is not going to be affected. Cause the decision is not going to be affected by this legislation that was passed last week with our support, what we’ve done. I made sure that we protected mine workers. That was the first thing I did. Then the second thing I did… we even called the class action lawyer who’s leading Simon’s class action to get his take on it. What we also did then was we, we understood that the legislation cannot cannot reverse the the written entitlements of miners at all. It can use an offset, which is, which is absolutely fair. We can’t have people being paid for entitlements and then get those same entitlements back. So that’s absolutely fair. And then you get the other thing that drove us was that small business is going to be gutted by this, because what will happen is, small businesses will have to pay twice for basic entitlements that are already protected in awards. Most of the awards in Australia, all but 12 have these provisions already in them.

[Marcus] All right. Joel?

[Joel] Well, what really disappoints me is that the Senator, the good Senator, seems to have suggested that the only reason Simon Turner the person he purports to represent has turned on him is because he’s been intimidated by the union. That’s a pretty, no that’d be charged. So I said that, your listeners either believe me, the union who represents the workers and Simon Turner who Malcolm purported to represent that now feels betrayed or they believe Senator Roberts. And I’m pretty confident Marcus your listeners will conclude that we are on the side of the workers. Malcolm Roberts has betrayed them and they should not trust him in the future.

[Marcus] You see, the big concern is that every new job could be casual. I mean, that was the main concern on the issue. What we’ll do is I’ll let both of you gentlemen have another couple of minutes each just to finish. So we’ll go first to you, Malcolm for your final comments.

[Malcolm] Well, they won’t betray miners because what’s actually happened is this bill that we supported with some amendments to protect workers further and protects small business further actually gives people a pathway to permanent employment. The union sold out the workers in the Hunter Valley because they eliminated any chance of that because they bodgied up an enterprise agreement in an award under an award that didn’t have a classification. So what means, what that means is that people under the EA are locked into lower pay rates than their work mates doing the same job next to them. Thanks to the union. They’re locked into being a permanent casual thanks to the union. And we also know that small business cannot afford the double dipping. So what we’ve, which is when a person gets paid for in lieu of his entitlements and then later claims those entitlements. All that’s happening here is that that is clarified now. So the small business can be protected. We’ve had many, many compliments from from small businesses, small business organisations because we have saved the day. We need some certainty here. We need some, some confidence back in business and back in and workers protections. And that’s what we’ve done. We’ve ensured workers are protected. We’ve put in extra provisions to make sure that we’ve also put in the bill, legislated in the bill is a 12 month review to see if there are any unintended consequences but we’ve also made detailed changes within that. And there’d be more coming out from us in a in a few weeks time, because we are going to be chasing BHP. We have chase BHP. We have chased Chandler McCloud. We’ve chased the Hunter Valley CFMEU and Joel is sat on his backside doing nothing. Stuart Bonds has been to Canberra more times with Simon Turner and with us and advocating for, for Simon in the in the parliament and in in my office than Joel has ever done.

[Marcus] All right. So Joel, to finish your points.

[Joel] Well, Malcolm can check the parliamentary hansard and my speeches in the parliament. Marcus I’ve been very active on this subject, but look I started by saying Malcolm’s been walking both sides of the street and listen to what he just said. He kept mentioning business business business. Now this is what he’s trying to do. He’s trying to stand, straddle this divide. The fact here is that a number of workers have signed enterprise agreements non-union enterprise agreements which we’re paying them less than the union members working alongside them, notwithstanding including Simon Turner. The fact that they weren’t union members the union took this to court to get it fixed because it believes it was unfair that people should be doing the same job and getting different. Pay rights. The court fixed the problem. The Morrison government didn’t like the outcomes. So they legislated to overrule the courts. And that bill on that bill used to overrule. The courts, Malcolm Turnbull put his hand. high, not Malcolm Turnbull sorry. Malcolm Roberts put his hand high in the air in the Australian Senate and said, yep. I’m with you Scott Morrison. And in doing so he did over the miners. And that’s what Simon Turner is saying in the Australian financial review today.

[Marcus] All right, gentlemen, thank you both for joining us. It’s been interesting. Let’s do this again sometime.

[Malcolm] Oh, Marcus, by the way the union signed the enterprise agreement.

[Marcus] All right, gentlemen. Thank you. Have a wonderful day. Joel Fitzgibbon., Hunter MP, Malcolm Roberts, Senator.