PATRICIA KARVELAS: Penny Wong is the Shadow Trade Minister and she joins us now, welcome to RN Drive.
SENATOR PENNY WONG, LEADER OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE SENATE: Good to be with you Patricia.
KARVELAS: Now the Governments just released a statement, it says in this statement its happy to consider your proposals and respond accordingly. I imagine youve seen the statement, are you pleased with what they have to say?
WONG: I am pleased that Andrew Robb has publicly said hes willing to have a discussion and to consider what weve put forward. We think weve put forward sensible, reasonable changes, that are about safeguarding jobs and certainly I think this is an example of Malcolm Turnbull having the opportunity to demonstrate hes not Tony Abbott, hes actually prepared to have a discussion in the national interest.
KARVELAS: Youve outlined your changes today, if the Government doesnt support all of your changes, is it a deal breaker, will you withdraw your support for the China Free Trade Agreement? How important is it that they adopt all of your changes?
WONG: Look, its very important that the issues weve raised are addressed and weve put forward what we consider to be sensible amendments to the migration arrangements that ensure safeguards for local jobs and other issues that we had concerns about. Were prepared to have a discussion in good faith with Mr Robb, but we are very clear that we do want proper safeguards in relation to this agreement.
Now maybe the Government can show us theres another way of achieving the same outcome, Im willing to hear that, but there are some important policy propositions that we have put forward, we think, are important and well be pressing for them.
KARVELAS: Penny Wong, initially Labor was talking very, very tough. Youve significantly diluted the language and also the scope of the changes. Do you regret the kind of really tough rhetoric you used?
WONG: I dont agree with your assertions actually, I think if you look back to what Ive been saying for some time my position has been very consistent. Ive said we do support free trade, we do support trade liberalisation, what we dont support in this agreement and what we have concerns about is not having labour market testing in relation to Investment Facilitation Arrangements. We have said we have concerns about the skills assessment, we have about the removal of labour market testing.
Now, obviously we are in Opposition, we cant rewrite an agreement. This isnt the agreement a Labor Government would have put in place, there are a range of things we wouldnt have included. One of them is the Investor State Dispute clause, which has had a lot of focus in the context of other trade negotiations and other trade agreements.
But as a responsible Opposition we have to try to balance our in principle support for more open trade against these concerns and what the Labor Caucus did today is say, look we want these complementary safeguards, thats the way forward to ensure bipartisan support for the agreement.
KARVELAS: Youre proposing three main changes, but the centrepiece is labour market testing, which you want to see before foreign workers can be brought in to work on large projects. Andrew Robb says youre only seeking clarity and comfort around the existing safeguards, here he is:
ANDREW ROBB: They are indeed clear government policy. The safeguards that Penny Wong and Bill Shorten talked about are in fact already clear government policy and are embedded in the requirements by the Department of Immigration.
KARVELAS: If theyre embedded in the Department why do you want to change them, is it just for political purposes?
WONG: Can I tell you what the embedding is? The embedding is a coloured flowchart that someone printed off in Peter Duttons office, that only became public as a result of Labor raising questions about this. I like Andrew, but I dont think anyone in this country thinks that labour market testing as a result of a flowchart that Peter Duttons provided is a proper safeguard.
We want safeguards that the Parliament can see, that the community can see and that the Parliament has influence over, and so what we are saying is these are safeguards that ought be put in legislation that the Parliament passes, and look, its a very simple proposition.
KARVELAS: But they are in regulation?
WONG: No, theyre not in regulation. They are in guidelines which can be changed at the whim of Peter Dutton, or before him Scott Morrison. So, I think calling them safeguards-
KARVELAS: -But are guidelines changed at the whim of ministers, really? Is that what you did when you were a minister?
WONG: Administrative guidelines departments issue is not what I call safeguards. So, we are being very clear, we want labour market testing in relation to the Investment Facilitation Arrangements, as you said, the project based arrangements under the China Free Trade Agreement, which also relate to work agreements across the migration sphere.
Id make this point, theres a very important policy proposition here, which I think Australians do agree with. Temporary skilled migration in this country has been used for the purposes of skills shortages, that is where we dont have Australians who are able to do those jobs and it is an entirely appropriate and legitimate policy. But I dont think the Governments current arrangements ensure that that principle is maintained, our safeguards do.
KARVELAS: Youre proposing two other changes, ensuring the foreign trades people have adequate qualifications to work in Australia, boosting the base pay for skilled foreign workers on 457 visas. Andrew Robb has two criteria for all your proposals:
ANDREW ROBB: If there are measures which would lead to a discrimination against China, that will rule out any consideration of that proposal. Secondly, if anything contravenes the firm commitments that we have made in this Free Trade Agreement, again we wont be considering such measures.
KARVELAS: Is the 457 visa pay boost designed to help foreign workers, or to make it financially tougher for foreign companies to bring those workers in?
WONG: First, can I just respond to the excerpt of Andrews press conference which you just played. Can I just say you might fall over but those are reasonable propositions. What he said is we dont want these changes to be discriminatory, we agree and they arent. And we dont want these changes to require any changes to the Treaty or for the Treaty to be torn up and they dont, what we are putting forward is consistent with the China Free Trade Agreement and is consistent with the principle of non-discrimination. So, thats the first point Id make.
I think you asked me about the base rate of pay. What we want to do is to lift what is the wage floor for temporary skilled migrants from $53,900 to $57,000 and that restores two years of indexation that the Coalition Government refused to pass on, so they froze it, so obviously over time that erodes the value. And second, we want to index it to wages growth, so ensuring that each year you get the increase in the wage floor for the temporary skilled migration framework.
Now, obviously there are also enforcement issues out there. Weve seen some very distressing stories, both in the context of 7-Eleven, but in the context of other workplaces, of migrant workers being exploited. There are obviously enforcement issues, what this does though is improve the wages floor.
KARVELAS: And on this requirement in relation to getting, I think, electrical work or plumbing must obtain the relevant occupational license or registration. Isnt that just extra red tape? I mean, its not that hard to get a license, doesnt it just lead to extra red tape?
WONG: When this agreement was finally published and there was a side letter between Andrew Robb and his counterpart which removes mandatory skills assessment for a range of trade occupations, including electricians, there was a great deal of concern in the community, because people obviously do want Australian standards maintained, regardless of the nationality of the person performing the work.
Mr Robbs answer was, well the States and Territories license these occupations, so in Victoria you would have an occupational licensing authority which would ensure electricians and various other occupations were licensed. Now we know that not every State and Territory has the enforcement arrangements that you might want in a perfect world, so what we said was this: we want a stronger link between the 457 visa regime for these occupations and these licensing regimes. So someone applying for a visa in these occupations, they have to demonstrate to the Immigration Department that they can obtain the license or actually have obtained the license and then we say we dont want them performing that work until they obtain the license and they have to obtain it within a specified time frame of arriving in Australia. So fundamentally the policy proposition is a stronger link between our immigration arrangements and our occupational licensing arrangements and I think that thats a very sensible proposition.
KARVELAS: And Andrew Robb says this must be passed by the end of the year. Will you guarantee now that you will pass this deal by the end of the year, regardless of where you land with your amendments?
WONG: I will guarantee that I will sit down with Andrew Robb and work as hard as we can to find a way through. I will also guarantee Labor will continue to press for these amendments. We are being very careful in what weve put forward. We havent a great deal of ambit; we havent put forward things which require Malcolm Turnbull and Andrew Robb to renegotiate the China Free Trade Agreement. We have been very careful about what we are seeking and we think this is a sensible package, which would enable bipartisan support and passage by the end of the year and Id encourage the Government to support it.
KARVELAS: Just quickly to Labors reshuffle, Labor and Bill Shorten announced a reshuffle of the Shadow Ministry today. An increase of women to beat Malcolm Turnbulls number of women, is kind of like a bit of a competitive grab bag to say look, weve got more women than Malcolm Turnbull given his new look Cabinet?
WONG: Have a look at the women were putting in. Katy Gallagher, whos been a First Minister, been the Chief Minister in the Australian Capital Territory, shes a very, very impressive Senator and politician. A very decent person, a person with deep policy experience. She brings a wealth of experience, not only was she Chief Minister, she was Treasurer and Minister for Health. Now, if you hold those portfolios at any level of government, then you have to be across your brief.
And the other is obviously Michelle Rowland. I think Michelle has been a fantastic Shadow Minister in the outer ministry. Shes really a strong advocate for multiculturalism. Shes very, very smart and shell bring a great deal of talent to the Shadow Cabinet.
So this is not about numbers, this is about bringing talent to the table and Im very pleased weve got two talented additional people in the Shadow Cabinet and Im even more delighted that weve two more women.
KARVELAS: Penny Wong, many thanks for your time.
WONG: Good to speak with you again.