Labor’s Clare O’Neil has defended Bill Shorten’s position on penalty rates, claiming he had only said he would stand by the decision of the Fair Work Commission on penalty rates because it was assumed the commission would not recommend cutting them.
Penalty rates were a point of contention on Monday night’s Q&A, with the government’s special minister for state saying the cut was justified because the Australian people had asked for an independent umpire to make decisions – and that’s what they got.
O’Neil and the Coalition’s Scott Ryan both appeared on Monday’s Q&A panel on the ABC, which covered a broad range of topics including the 25% to 50% cuts to Sunday penalty rates, euthanasia, travel expenses and whether Tony Abbott is a hypocrite.
O’Neil said the government had made a bad decision in accepting the Fair Work Commission’s call. “Exactly how unequal are we willing to allow Australia to become?” she said.
“This is a direct pay cut for 700,000 of the poorest paid people in this country. More likely to be women, more likely to be migrants, not very well educated.”
Asked about repeated statements by Shorten that he would accept whatever decision the commission made, O’Neil said the opposition leader had made his comments when it was assumed the commission “was not going to go down the paths of putting these people further back than they already are”.
“The Fair Work Commission has done something that was unexpected and completely unacceptable to us as Labor people.”
Ryan defended the changes to penalty rates, saying the Australian public had wanted an independent umpire to make decisions, and now it had after taking thousands of submissions. He said tens of thousands of new jobs would be created.
“If you particularly go to regional areas where you might see a little strip of shops, penalty rates have been keeping some of those cafes and places like that closed,” he said. “We will see some increased employment opportunities. The important point to note is the government is standing by the umpire.”
The former Abbott government adviser Ted Lapkin said penalty rates were “a real burden” to small businesses “and to the extent that we can make it easier for people to start businesses and generate economic activity, I think Scott was right and it will result in more jobs”.
.@PeterSinger says we need to consider a basic income. @SenatorRyan is optimistic that changes will be dealt with well #QandA pic.twitter.com/26nmsBGN4w
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) February 27, 2017
The ethicist and philosopher Peter Singer said he didn’t see a reason for penalty rates on Sunday when most Australians don’t go to church, and suggested the minimum wage be raised instead so everyone ended up better off.
A sustainability and design disruption advocate, Leyla Acaroglu, linked the issue back to a previous question about travel entitlements, and noted a “contradictory situation”.
“I think it’s great the last question was about entitlement and exploiting the opportunities that are available to you and then the same people are given the power to make decisions that are ultimately going to affect a lot of people’s lives,” Acaroglu said, accusing the government of lacking the foresight to talk about the industries which need nurturing to create jobs of the future.
The panel had just finished discussing politicians’ entitlements, including an expenses scandal in the Victorian Labor government which led to the resignations of the Speaker and deputy Speaker.
O’Neil did not seek to defend her Labor compatriots. She said she couldn’t “get into their heads and tell you what’s going on”, and only suggested that if politicians had been around for a long time perhaps their sense of entitlement grew.
What changes can the panel suggest for entitlements to reinstate our trust? @ClareONeilMP & @SenatorRyan respond #QandA pic.twitter.com/ClxwtdpDL4
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) February 27, 2017
“We can’t continue like this,” she said. “It is corrupting our democracy and making it very hard for Scott and I to do our jobs because the ordinary people in the country don’t believe that we are doing it.”
Meanwhile Ryan said the federal government had taken action to crack down on politicians’ entitlements, citing the scrapping of the travel “gold pass” as an example.
But when he was asked by the host, Tony Jones, whether it remained “permissable for federal politicians to use their rental allowance to pay off a mortgage on a Canberra house that has been purchased by close family member”, Ryan confirmed it was. “There’s nothing illegal about that,” he said.
“Isn’t that effectively getting a house for free?” Jones asked.
“There are some decisions made by the government,” Ryan responded. “There are some made by an independent remuneration tribunal. They will decide the rules.”
When asked if he believed it passed the pub test, Ryan said only that he didn’t do it and “not that many” others did it. “Most don’t have the spare amount of money to buy a second place in Canberra,” he said.
Why would people trust Abbott, who is clearly the parliament’s biggest hypocrite? @SenatorRyan & @ClareONeilMP respond #QandA pic.twitter.com/VBva50atvJ
— ABC Q&A (@QandA) February 27, 2017
Ryan was also asked about the damaging comments made by the former prime minister Tony Abbott, accused by Malcolm Turnbull of timing his “outburst” to damage Turnbull’s standing in polling. The program’s first questioner queried if Abbott was a hypocrite because he famously said there would be “no wrecking, no undermining and no sniping” from his backbench seat.
Ryan conceded “it wasn’t helpful last week, but what I’d say is it was public. It wasn’t background.”
O’Neil said it was exactly what people hated about politics but conceded “Labor stuffed up” also during its time in office.
“I never want to be a part of a party that does that to the Australian public again,” she said. “I’m shocked the Liberals didn’t learn the lesson.”
Singer said people were not talking about the actual substance of Abbott’s speech – including his thoughts on climate change and energy policy, and on immigration – but were again focused on prospective leadership challenges.
“There were a lot of negatives that people should have really directed themselves to,” he said.
