SUBJECT | IR Legislation and Free Trade Agreements | 21 November 2022
PETE STEFANOVIC: Joining us live is the shadow immigration minister, Dan Tehan. Dan, good to see you. It's the final sitting fortnight of the year. Do you think the IR bill gets through?
DAN TEHAN: Well, I hope not, Pete. It's not a good piece of legislation, and there's two things that really concern me about it. The first of all is that when you look at Tony Burke's track record as a minister, it's not a great one. He was, obviously, the immigration minister in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government. He failed there. He was then moved into the Environment Department, and we remember his great fanfare; he went up to have a look at what was going to happen when they decided to end cattle grazing in the high country, and he ended up getting bogged, and it was quite embarrassing. He had to come back, and he hadn't seen anything. So his track record as a minister isn't good, and then, secondly, this piece of legislation has been rushed. It hasn't been modelled. There's been no economic modelling done. We’re hearing that it's going to drive unemployment higher, and the sad reality is when unemployment goes higher, that means the government has to pay more welfare. That means, in the end, that they'll come looking for more money. So taxes are likely to go up as a result of this bill. So it's bad legislation. We know already they've agreed to over 300 pages of amendments. So they should pull it and go back to the drawing board and start again.
STEFANOVIC: The Prime Minister has said those who resist higher wages reforms are wrong every time, ‘the sky never falls in’, is what he has said today. So how can you be so sure that this will lead to extra job losses?
TEHAN: Well, because what we know from the work that employers have done shows that that's what will occur. The government has done no economic modelling. We know in the budget that real wages are going to go down; now, the reason they won't model this legislation is because they know that this won't lead to higher real wages because the budget that they released only a month ago says the opposite. What this is all about is the Labor Party looking after their union mates, saying to them, ‘we are going to give you entry into every small and medium-sized business across the country’. That's what this bill is about. There's no economic modelling. There's nothing to prove that it will do anything with regard to wages. We know that it will drive unemployment higher, and we know with unemployment higher, that's likely to lead to higher taxes.
STEFANOVIC: So, are you going to fight tooth and nail against the whole thing, or do you think it should be broken up into parts?
TEHAN: Well, we think the whole thing should be withdrawn, and they should start again. They've got no mandate for it, and there is nothing which shows that, in any way, it will do what the government is hoping for it to do. It was cooked up before the jobs summit to make sure that the union movement stayed quiet at the jobs summit while they lifted the migration cap by 35,000 for this year. That was the unwritten deal at the jobs summit, and now we're seeing the payback, and that's all this is about is Labor looking after their union mates at the expense, in particular, of small and medium-sized businesses, who have done a really, really hard through the pandemic, are already dealing with complexity and extra regulation, and they're now going to have these thrown in over the top of all that. It's going to make it so much harder for small and medium-sized businesses in this country, and that, in the end, that's what's going to drive the unemployment rate higher.
STEFANOVIC: Okay. It looks as though a couple of FTAs will finally get through, Dan, ones that you've been initially involved in. Are you pleased about that?
TEHAN: Well, I am Pete; both these FTAs, the UK FTA and the India FTA, are job-creating agreements. They’re the type of agreements that the Parliament should be put through over the next fortnight, especially for our agricultural sector, with the UK FTA. It will lead to more jobs and more export opportunities. And obviously, the India FTA opens us up to the fastest growing, large economy in the world and will see us be able to expand services, certain parts of our ag sector and create more jobs as well. So these are both good agreements. The type of agreements that the Parliament should pass will lead to more jobs for Australia and higher incomes for Australian workers. They're the types of agreement the Parliament should be put through.
STEFANOVIC: OK, Dan Tehan, the shadow immigration minister.
