FRAN KELLY: Penny Wong is Labors Leader in the Senate and Shadow Minister for Trade. Senator Wong, welcome back to Breakfast.
SENATOR PENNY WONG, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE: Good morning Fran. Good to be with you again.
KELLY: The DFAT website says the Chinese deal will not allow unrestricted access to the Australian labour market by Chinese workers. It will not allow Australian employment laws or conditions to be undermined. It will not allow Chinese companies to avoid paying Australian wages by foreign workers. It does not change the required skill levels for Chinese visa applicants. Why doesnt that satisfy you?
WONG: And the agreement does not ensure that jobs available are offered to Australians who can do them first. Can we just take a step back first, and Im very happy to deal with the detail of the agreement, which is something the Government refuses to do. Weve got a situation where legitimate questions have been asked about this agreement. Instead of dealing with them we have ministers in this Government, including the Prime Minister, simply calling people racist for raising these issues. Weve got a Government thats announced a taxpayer funded advertising campaign and a Minister who has headed off overseas, what we dont have is anybody whos prepared to deal with the detail of the agreement and the excerpts you played, whether its the Finance Minister, or the reference to the Prime Minister, demonstrates its a Government thats running away from the detail of the agreement.
Im happy to go through the two issues. There are two aspects of the China Free Trade Agreement which deal with people movement, labour movement. Theres whats called the movement of natural persons, where labour market testing, that is offering the job to Australians first, has been explicitly removed. And the second is in relation to the Investment Facilitation Agreements, these are projects of over $150 million, and its quite clear that labour market testing is not in the agreement and is an optional extra at the discretion of the minister.
KELLY: Let me quote the Minister on that, Andrew Robb, who is the Trade Minister says, and Im quoting here: If a company is approved for an IFA, one of those projects, there are significant conditions that must be satisfied before a single overseas worker can be recruited, that includes that employers must demonstrate a labour market need, prove that Australians have been given first opportunity through labour market testing, with evidence of significant recruiting efforts. How is that not an effort to recruit Australians first?
WONG: None of that is in the agreement, Fran. None of that is in the agreement.
KELLY: So, Andrew Robb-
WONG: That might be what he says government policy is, what the discretion or the whim of the Minister of the day may or may not include. But he should be clear with Australians, none of that is in the agreement and that only applies to the Investment Facilitation Agreement. And I have to say the accusations of racism really, from a Government that defended the rights of bigots, from a Prime Minister who has refused to condemn a backbencher for attending a Reclaim Australia rally, and we all know the racist views those rallies set out, and a government that has a discriminatory investment framework which discriminates against Chinese investment, really those accusations really do fall pretty flat.
KELLY: I want to come back to that, but I just want to try with some of the detail, because Im also quoting to you from the Department of Immigration and Border Protection guidelines now, for those big projects, those IFAs, Im quoting here again: employers must show that there is demonstrated labour market need, Australians have been given the first opportunity through evidence of domestic recruitment activity, in other words labour market testing, and there are no suitably qualified Australians. So we have had the Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Immigration, and the Trade Minister all saying that the FTA insists first opportunity, with evidence of domestic recruitment activity, is in this FTA.
WONG: It cannot be in relation to contractual service suppliers and installers and servicers, because that Chapter of the Trade Agreement specifically excludes labour market testing, it says Australia will not impose, as a condition of the Agreement, labour market testing on persons who enter Australia under that Chapter of the Agreement. So, lets be very clear about that, thats been specifically given away and excluded by the Government.
KELLY: Thats for specific areas of skills, is it?
WONG: This is movement of natural persons, that provision of that Chapter in the Agreement, which specifically says people who fall into the categories of contractual services suppliers and installers and servicers. There is no labour market testing in relation to those provisions and the Minister has not answered any questions, the Government has not answered any questions about that provision. In relation to the second aspect, which is these projects of over $150 million, what I would again say to you is what you quoted at me is not included anywhere, in any of either the text of the Treaty, or in any of the side letters between Australia and China. So the Government is asking Australians to ignore the text of the arrangement and to believe that the whim of the Minister might include these provisions.
KELLY: So what do you want to do? What does Labor want to do? You say you dont want to threaten the FTA, you want to back it. Labor spent years itself in government itself trying to get this FTA. Do you want to rewrite the deal, thats likely to throw it back to the negotiating stage, or what do you want to do?
WONG: We have said we are up for a trade agreement with China. We recognise-
KELLY: Weve got one, so what do you want to do with it?
WONG: - the importance of the economic relationship with China. In government you might recall, Fran, we spent a lot of energy on the White Paper which set out Australias engagement with the region, something that the Abbott Government has junked.
KELLY: Yeah, but Andrew Robb has got the deal signed.
WONG: On this, we think this deal lacks some critical safeguards. We want to explore how we improve this agreement with the addition of safeguards and we would say to the Government, you should do what John Howard was prepared to do and that is to sit down with the Labor Party and work our way through how additional safeguards can be included in this agreement.
KELLY: But the Minister says trying to renegotiate this will undermine the whole thing, put it at risk. Do you want to renegotiate the Trade Agreement, or do you just want to have certain elements written into legislation?
WONG: We want to see how we can include certain safeguards in relation to this agreement. Now, in terms of the detail of that, I would make this point: we dont have enabling legislation yet before the Parliament. The Government, in fact, sat on this deal for some seven months between signature and making the text public. Now they are demanding that Labor immediately sign up after they have sat on this for months and months, and the various committees of Parliament that consider the Treaty havent reported. Now we will certainly work our way through the detail of this, but it is disappointing that the Governments first response to legitimate questions being asked by the Opposition and by the community more broadly are simply met with an attack as to peoples intentions.
KELLY: The attack that we heard earlier from Mathias Cormann that says Labor is supporting a racist dog-whistling campaign by the unions. Do you accept that the union campaign has xenophobic overtones.
WONG: I think the union campaign is critical of Tony Abbott. I think the campaign, both from the union and questions from the community more broadly and questions from us are about legitimate concerns relating to the agreement. And I think the Government would do far better to respond directly to some of those concerns, rather than simply lashing out at anyone who does. Whats interesting, to be fair to you, you have actually asked me questions about the agreement. That is not something the Government is proposing to do. They dont set out their response in terms of what theyve actually agreed in answer to any of the concerns raised by the community, or the Opposition, or the trade union campaign.
KELLY: Those TV ads though from the unions, they are a little scary. They do say others are going to come to take your jobs and yet the Government says under the FTA more jobs will be created for Australians, not less jobs, which is, its true, isnt it, ultimately if the FTA is successful?
WONG: The whole point about trade and opening up trade, which is why Labor has been a party that has opened up our economy and engaged in trade liberalisation in government and opposition for some decades now, is we want to create more jobs for Australians. The whole point of that is undermined if you have an agreement which doesnt have the appropriate safeguards in relation to people movement, which is why we are raising these issues.
KELLY: Can I just ask you finally, on another issue, Senator Wong, Dyson Heydon will tell us tomorrow whether he accepts or rejects submissions that he should step down as the Royal Commissioner, the Trade Union Royal Commission, because of perceived bias. If he decides to continue, will Labor accept that decision, or will you move to ask the Governor-General to remove him?
WONG: We anticipate that Commissioner Heydon should do the right thing. I dont think our concerns have been allayed by anything that he has said. I dont think any fair minded observer, looking at the explanations he has given for his acceptance of speaking at a Liberal Party fundraiser, could come to the view that there is no apprehension of bias. Now I am conscious that he is deliberating currently and obviously he should be permitted to do that, but Id have to say Labor and the communitys concerns havent been allayed by any of the responses that were provided by the Commissioner last week.
KELLY: Senator Penny Wong, thank you very much for joining us.
WONG: Good to speak with you.