RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

The parliamentary year ended this week not with a whimper, but with a bang.

Just as federal politicians were packing up and preparing to head home, the government introduced radical and controversial proposed changes to worker’s rights.

The new legislation looks set to dominate the political agenda in the new year.

Today, Paul Bongiorno on how the political battlelines are being drawn, and Scott Morrison’s end of year message to his troops.

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RUBY:

Paul, parliament wrapped up for the year this week after what has been an extraordinary period, not just in politics, but across the world more generally. What did the prime minister have to say about it?

PAUL:

Well, Ruby, when the prime minister addressed the last coalition party room meeting of the year, you know, he sounded more like a circuit preacher than Scotty from marketing.

RUBY:

Paul Bongiorno is a columnist for The Saturday Paper.

PAUL:

His stirring words of self-congratulation were tempered, though, with a reminder that his colleagues needed to stay humble.

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison

“The selflessness of government; that is incredibly important. The humility of government is one that looks at what the needs of our community is, not what our interests are.”

PAUL:

You know, the old retort that in their case, they have plenty to be humble about can be applied. But at the end of the year that Morrison acknowledged had been like no other Australians have survived better than many others.

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison

“And despite the challenges of this year, I believe Australia is stronger today than it was a year ago. And I believe Australia will be stronger again next year…”

PAUL:

And of course, Morrison wouldn't be a politician if he didn't claim a lion's share of the credit. And you have to say, compared to Donald Trump's America or Boris Johnson's Britain, the Australian leader's performance on handling the pandemic has been better than world class. Oh, he hasn't done it alone. And he was more ready to acknowledge his fellow citizens. It's you and me and liberal and national colleagues. Then he was ready to mention the premiers and chief ministers, let alone the federal opposition, who in fact supported the key legislation that helped keep Australia relatively buoyant throughout the crisis.

Archival tape -- Scott Morrison

“It's been about supporting them in their plans, in their resilience and what they were seeking to do to keep their businesses together, their families together, their communities together, their lives together. And they had a plan for doing that. And we backed those plans in.”

PAUL:

And Morrison, with considerable justification, given the most recent national accounts figures, was able to claim the comeback has begun. But the recovery, he said, still has quite a journey ahead of us. He said we must continue as we have this year as we move into next year.

RUBY:

And what does next year look like, Paul? Because as you mentioned, the economy looks like it's headed for a slow recovery, but that is largely due to the enormous amount of stimulus that was pumped in by the government. So is that likely to continue?

PAUL:

Well, it's a great question, Ruby, and ultimately it depends on if the government is willing to be held to account and pay more than lip service to putting the national interest well ahead of sectional interests.
The fiscal conservatives in Morrison's ranks, who swallowed hard as the government embarked on the biggest spending spree in the country's history, plunging the budget into breathtaking debt, well, they've got little patience with more stimulus. Indeed, the winding back of JobKeeper and JobSeeker could see the comeback stalled in its tracks. So if the withdrawal was to keep these fiscal fiends onside, it could be a huge price to pay for that government stability and unity.

RUBY:

So what are the economic projections looking like, Paul, especially considering that the stimulus is already being wound back?

PAUL:

Well, the Reserve Bank deputy governor, Guy Debelle, recently warned that one of the lessons of the global financial crisis was removing the stimulus too early.

Archival tape -- Guy Debelle

“There’s a hell of a lot of uncertainty out there and we’ve just got to see how all that plays out…”
He pointed to the decade of weak growth in Britain and Europe.

Archival tape -- Guy Debelle

“...in Europe they’re going backwards, having not even anywhere near regained where they were before they went into all of this…”

PAUL:

And now we have in the United States with its latest stimulus moves stalled in the Republican dominated Senate. And, well, it looks like the US is set to repeat the folly.
Well there is a real prospect Australia does, too, if not on such a large scale. The Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, took great heart from the strong growth in the consumer spending last week, you might remember in the September quarter. But as many economic commentators point out, those September figures are coming off a very low base, heavily impacted by shutdowns and the worst of the pandemic. So for that consumption to be sustained, problems at pre-existed Covid-19 need to be addressed again. And they are low wage growth and productivity.

RUBY:

So does the government have a plan to address those issues, Paul?

PAUL:

Haha well Ruby it certainly is a plan to drastically reshape the industrial relations landscape of this country. In a surprise move midweek, the federal industrial relations minister dropped a new bill into the parliament that was reminiscent of the Howard government's notorious WorkChoices Legislation.
So it looks like the battle lines are being drawn for a furious summer brawl between the coalition labour and the unions.

RUBY:

We'll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Paul, this week, the government introduced a controversial new bill that would shake up workplace law in Australia. What's it trying to achieve?

PAUL:

Well, Ruby, in the words of the author of the bill, the Industrial Relations Minister, Christian Porter, it's to support jobs and our economic recovery.

Archival tape -- Christian Porter

We wanna see more agreements paying more people more money, and that help businesses drive productivity so they can actually grow their way out of the Covid-19 recession.

PAUL:

He says it's to help businesses hard hit by the Covid-19 crisis in the way in which they employ people, give them more flexibility, waive certain conditions and waive some of the rules relating to casual employment. But Ruby, the most contentious part of this legislation is the way in which it deals with the boot. Now, the famous boot is the better off overall test. This is the test that the Fair Work Commission applies to any enterprise agreements making sure that the agreements leave employees better off and not worse off.

RUBY:

Right. And Labour and the union movement are taking a stand against the bill. Can you tell me about that?

PAUL:

Well, the unions and the Labour opposition say the Morrison government's industrial relations bill will do nothing except deliver wage cuts to millions of workers. Now, the core complaint is the ability of employers to waive that boot, the better off overall test. Previously, employers could only change conditions if it meant workers wouldn't be materially worse off. Well, that'll now change.

Archival tape -- Tony Burke

This is what a pay cut looks like.

PAUL:

Labour's Tony Burke held up the bill in the Senate courtyard and said it was the government's Christmas present-...

Archival tape -- Tony Burke

(...Christmas present) to workers who got us through the pandemic.

PAUL:

He said the government has taken the better off overall test and turned it into a test where under an agreement, every single worker Covid will be worse off.

Archival tape -- Tony Burke

We said the test for whether or not we would support the legislation that they put forward would be whether or not the legislation delivered secure jobs with decent pay. What's been introduced today fails that.

PAUL:

Well, the ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, who was a participant in the 150 hours of discussions with employers and the government during the darkest days of the pandemic, says these proposals were never discussed.

Archival tape -- Sally McManus

Yeah, well, this is really disappointing. Essentially, what the government's announced is exactly what the employers wanted. And I'll explain it really simply. It allows employers to put a label on someone and call them a casual, even if it's a permanent job...

PAUL:

And she says the proposals are dangerous and extreme. And like WorkChoices, they'd allow employers to cut wages and conditions.

Archival tape -- Sally McManus

We think actually it's going to take rights backwards to casuals and will entrench the problem we’ve currently got.

PAUL:

And she says the union movement will fight these changes.

RUBY:

So it sounds like we're gearing up for a bit of a showdown on industrial relations Paul?

PAUL:

Well, it does. A Christian Porter, though, is defending the changes as incremental, but he says they're consequential reform to try and remove the barriers to employment.

Archival tape -- Christian Porter

I mean, every one of the reforms that we're engaging in is designed, given what we've been through with Covid, to remove barriers to job growth, to remove barriers which prevent people getting more hours in their employment, if that's what they want...

PAUL:

According to the government, they're tied to the damage done to businesses by Covid-19 and they have a two year time limit. Porter says even the architect of enterprise agreements, Labour's former PM Paul Keating, accepts the system isn't working as he intended and needs reform needs some change.
The prime minister's line in Parliament was that if businesses don't exist, no one has a job. Well, that's an argument that presumes businesses have the right to exploit workers to ensure their own survival.

You know, the idea being, if you don't want to work for a pittance, get a better job somewhere else. Well, this is the flawed thinking that led former Liberal Prime Minister John Howard into the ravine of WorkChoices. Now, it may be acceptable in the United States of America, but if the 2007 election proved anything, this idea is rejected in Australia.

RUBY:

Paul, what do you think that this means for the political landscape, looking ahead, after a relatively bipartisan 2020 are we shaping up for an all out brawl next year?

PAUL:

Well, Ruby, next year is expected to be an election year, an election in the second half of the year or at the latest very early in the following year. So we're going to see far more contestability. There's no doubt about that. More politics as usual, business as usual. And this will be aided, I think, if the Covid crisis begins to abate even more, especially with the arrival of a vaccine. And Morrison goes into the new year confident he's been given something of a Teflon coating, I'd have to say, by Covid; nothing seems to stick to him, while Labour goes into the New Year, well, self doubting - there are rumblings about how great Anthony Albanese is and whether he could lead Labour to victory. So they're not the happy campers they'd like to be going into an election year. So as the saying goes, we are condemned to continue living in interesting times.

RUBY:

Paul, thank you so much for your time today.

PAUL:

Thank you, Ruby. Bye.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today..

The Chinese government has announced further tariffs on Australian imports, targeting wine markers. Last month Australia’s wine industry was hit with tariffs of up to 200 percent on exports to China.

The measure is expected to heighten tensions between the two countries.

And In the US federal authorities are investigating the business dealings of Hunter Biden. His father, President-elect Joe Biden, is not implicated.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, see you tomorrow.

7am is a daily show from The Monthly and The Saturday Paper. It’s produced by Ruby Schwartz, Atticus Bastow, Michelle Macklem, and Cinnamon Nippard.

Elle Marsh is our features and field producer, in a position supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

Brian Campeau mixes the show. Our editor is Osman Faruqi. Erik Jensen is our editor-in-chief.
Our theme music is by Ned Beckley and Josh Hogan of Envelope Audio.

New episodes of 7am are released every weekday morning. Subscribe in your favourite podcast app, to make sure you don’t miss out.