Bill Shorten Interview with Laurie Oakes

Below is a transcript from Channel Nine's Sunday Program where AWU National Secretary Bill Shorten was interviewed by Laurie Oakes regarding John Howard's proposed changes to industrial laws and the future of the ALP.

JANA WENDT: In their biggest rallies for years, Australia's unions hit the streets around the nation this week in a massive show of defiance against the Coalition's planned workplace reforms.

Now that he has control of the Senate, the Prime Minister is determined to restructure the industrial relations system. He says reforms will lift productivity and create thousands of jobs. But the unions fear his real aim is to wind back many of the rights they've won in a century of struggle.

Leading the resistance on the streets is the Australian Workers' Union headed by Bill Shorten, who's in our Brisbane studio this morning to talk with Sunday's political editor Laurie Oakes.

Good morning Laurie.

LAURIE OAKES: Morning Jana. Mr Shorten, welcome to the programme.

BILL SHORTEN: Good morning Laurie.

LAURIE OAKES: The Government won the election. It won a majority in both Houses in fact. So isn't it entitled to implement its policies?

BILL SHORTEN: I think that -- there's no question that the people's will was heard and that the Government now controls the Senate. But I've had a pretty careful look at the industrial relations policy that the Prime Minister took to the polls. And there's a lot of radical changes now emerging upon control of the Senate which was never talked about or discussed with the electorate before the last election.

LAURIE OAKES: What kind of things weren't mentioned then?

BILL SHORTEN: Well, I don't think the Government was talking about lowering real wages by undercutting and lowering the capacity of minimum wage workers to get real wage increases. No one ever talked about that.

I don't recall any documents or literature or speeches saying that if you work at a company with less than 100 employees it'll now be possible to be legally unfairly dismissed. And I certainly don't recall them saying they were going to take the chainsaw to a 100 year old institution -- the Industrial Relations Commission. This is pretty radical stuff.

LAURIE OAKES: Is it do or die for the union movement? If you don't win this battle are you then consigned to irrelevancy?

BILL SHORTEN: Well, people have been predicting the death of unions, I think, since 1904. So I'm optimistic about the long-term durability of unions. Because our values are sound values. But there's no question that led by Greg Combet the union movement in Australia is in for the fight of its life. These are bad laws and bad changes, and really they're not the way to take Australia forward in the 21st Century.

LAURIE OAKES: The union movement got a lot of people onto the streets last week. A lot of people protesting. Presumably mostly union members. What's the aim of the campaign? Is it to try and frighten the Government off by marshalling public support against the measures?

BILL SHORTEN: The Prime Minister's a pretty cautious politician. Perhaps his ambitious understudy Peter Costello is less cautious when it comes to attacking unions. I think the Prime Minister's gauging if this is just a few union officials being unhappy about changes, then I think he'll go full on fifth gear.

But if he thinks that the so-called Howard battlers -- I just like to call them Australians who go to work every day, pay their taxes -- if he thinks these people are going to get disturbed by the pace and the size and the radicalism of the changes, then I think there's a chance he may back off some of the changes.

I think the real issue is for the union movement, and it's certainly started off doing that quite well, I think, last week, is explaining to mums and dads in the outer suburbs in regional Australia that there is every chance in the future that on the weekends you won't get penalty rates. That you'll lose your shift allowances. That you could be casual for eight years. I think this is the real challenge for the union movement.

LAURIE OAKES: To what extent is the campaign aimed at flushing out nervous nellies among Coalition Senators?

BILL SHORTEN: Well, I think that the Coalition majority's pretty solid, and some people say that well, Malcolm Fraser controlled the Senate, and there were a lot of Liberals then who stood up to him. But the modern Liberal Party's not like the Liberal Party of Menzies, or indeed of the seventies.

There's some pretty hard line people who would rather look after the interests of big business than the rest of us. I think the real challenge for the union movement, and -- and -- is to make sure that people who are complacent -- people who think that nothing will change, actually realise the extent of the changes.

For instance, for the last nine years, the Liberals haven't controlled the Senate. I noticed Kevin Andrews during the week saying hey, you can trust us. The sky hasn't fallen in yet, so why will it do so now? There's one big difference -- they control everything. This is unfettered power in the hands of one man.

LAURIE OAKES: Well, to what extent is the campaign aimed at setting up an issue for the next election in two-and-a-half years time?

BILL SHORTEN: Well, I think there'll be the first raft of legal changes. But this is a 900 day campaign until the next election. I think that most Australians, regardless if they're in a union or not, and indeed if they vote Liberal or Labor, have an in-built common sense about sticking somewhere in the middle of politics. I think most Australians are concerned if the pendulum swings far too one way or the other. So I think it'll be an opportunity. There's simple questions, Laurie.

Like I can't understand why on Earth it would -- a system of law should be created so that mum won't get penalty rates on the weekend, or your son or your daughter will be asked to sign an individual contract and hand away their rights to holidays. These are important issues.

LAURIE OAKES: Well, so far what we've had is a bit of marching up and down and some stop work meetings. How far is the union movement prepared to go? Are we likely to see genuine militancy? Are we going to see genuine industrial disruption in this country?

BILL SHORTEN: Laurie, as much as that may perhaps help sell some newspapers, or make some good footage, I think people like John Robertson at Unions New South Wales and Greg Combet, they get what's important here. We've got to educate and talk with the public and the community.

I was terribly interested in His Eminence Cardinal Pell's intervention in the media this weekend. I think before we have a debate about the changes, it's incumbent on the Government with their newfound power to act with some humility.

What's the case for change? Where is the fire which requires this drastic legislative fire brigade to put it out? I mean, after all the Government says that employment's high. They say that real wages have moved along.

The state systems -- what's the case for robbing every state in Australia except Victoria of their quite effective state systems? What is the case?

LAURIE OAKES: Can I take...

BILL SHORTEN: Please go ahead.

LAURIE OAKES: Well, look, can I take it from what you're saying that the union movement's going to be very careful to try not to alienate Australian voters, despite people like John Robertson talking about co-ordinated, noisy, industrial reaction?

BILL SHORTEN: The game in town here is hearts and minds. And we've got to appeal to the middle ground. I think people are wondering do these changes mean that they will have less secure jobs and could be instantly dismissed? That's the game in town.

LAURIE OAKES: Now, what about Kim Beazley's role? I mean, it seems to me that he's now got -- at least seen to be standing for something. Fighting for something. Do you think this campaign can help his leadership of the Labor Party?

BILL SHORTEN: I think Kim Beazley understands the importance of having an independent trade union movement contributing to improving people's circumstances. I saw him on Thursday in Melbourne very energised.

Watching him speak to 100,000 people who marched in the streets makes me -- reminded me, and watching his energy flow from these people's obvious interest and support for him, is what Winston Churchill once said -- that opposite him sat his opposition, behind him sometimes his enemies.

I think that Kim Beazley gets the union issue, and gets the issue of the fair go in the work place. And I think he is setting some building blocks in place. He had a pretty good -- he had a pretty good reshuffle. You've got some young bright Federal Shadow Ministers coming through -- Penny Wong, Tony Burke. I think he's putting some building blocks in place.

LAURIE OAKES: You say he had a good reshuffle. But one of the criticisms of that reshuffle was that he didn't emerge with a shadow minister dedicated to industrial relations -- it's lumped in with infrastructure and that sort of thing. Should he have had a dedicated industrial relations shadow minister?

BILL SHORTEN: Oh, I think Stephen Smith will be spending most of his time on industrial relations in the immediate short-term. I think what you've got to look at in this reshuffle, he got some new blood in. I think in addition with Stephen Smith there's someone close to the leadership, so unions and their issues have a voice close to the leadership.

I also think fundamentally when you talk about reshuffles, if I was Malcolm Turnbull or Petro Georgiou, I'd be wondering why I wasn't getting a run on the Liberal front bench.

LAURIE OAKES: The -- the Bernie Lagan book on Mark Latham has caused all the headlines this week, and distracted a lot of people from the industrial relations issue, which I assume you're not too pleased about. How much has Mark Latham damaged the Party in the last week?

BILL SHORTEN: Oh, listen, Mark Latham had his strengths, and certainly I agree with quite a few of the conclusions of both Bernie Lagan's book, and also what John Faulkner had to say. Certainly some of the conclusions. Fundamentally it was a distraction.

Mark Latham -- I just hope that he recovers, and that -- I do think that this oxygen being given to an attack on Beazley's unnecessary. The real fight is the issue of promoting the interests of working people and their families, and anything which takes away from that is undisciplined.

LAURIE OAKES: What criticisms in the Lagan book and from John Faulkner do you agree with?

BILL SHORTEN: Oh, well certainly there's no question in my mind that the campaign went off the rails in the last weeks of the election. But I don't quite agree with some of the analysis floating around that the Party itself is beyond reform and repair. We do hold Government in eight state -- territories and states.

I mean, after all I don't see the Liberal Party jumping off the cliff because both in the Northern Territory and Queensland they couldn't find enough people to stack a phone box at the state level. So I'd -- these things have a cycle, and we're two and a half years out from an election.

I mean, in the eighties no one ever thought that Labour -- that British Labour could defeat Thatcher, and in the eighties we all, including many of your colleagues in the media, said the Prime Minister was unelectable. There's a big wheel in life. It turns.

LAURIE OAKES: There's speculation in one of the newspapers today, and another one yesterday, that Peter Beattie could be persuaded to move to Canberra to try and save Federal Labor. Do you give that any credence?

BILL SHORTEN: Peter Beattie's a very successful Premier. He holds 62 out of 89 seats at the State level, yet Labor gets 6 out of 28 federally. I've got no doubt he's got insights to contribute.

If he wanted to come to Canberra he'd be a valuable addition as a member of Kim Beazley's team. Peter and Kim are very close, and I think that Labor can use new blood, but certainly Kim Beazley's the bloke to take us to the next election. Unreservedly.

LAURIE OAKES: Well, you -- you're often mentioned in dispatches too as a possible future Labor leader. Given that, what kind of changes do you think Labor needs to make -- to become electable? What sort of policies, and particularly tax policies, does it need?

BILL SHORTEN: Well, in terms of your first remark, there's plenty of Labor leaders and potentials already there. So we're not too worried about that. In terms of policies, I think Kim Beazley's talking about what needs to be done.

It's about the economy. Funnily enough -- I consider it a little ironic -- in the last election John Howard turned the issue of trust around and said trust him on the economy. I think the challenge for Labor is to say that the economy is the most important issue. But the economy's got to serve the interests of ordinary people, not just big business.

What we've got to do in Australia is grow the economic pie rather than decrease the slice which the battlers' get and give more of the slice to big business. I think we've got to grow the pie overall.

If we go back to where we started, Laurie, how on Earth will we ever compete with the Chinese economy just by lowering wages or restraining wages? We'll never be as cheap as the rice bowl wages of China.

I think instead we've got to look at education, and that's what Kim Beazley talks about. Now education's -- certainly at the tertiary level -- just the preserve of the rich. I also think you've got to look at research and development.

We've got to be smarter, not dumber. We've got to be -- look after everyone, not just leave people behind. I think Kim Beazley gets all of these things, and he has a good solid story to talk about the economy.

I mean, it's a little ironic, isn't it? Bob Geldof -- Sir Bob Geldof organised a Live Aid concert because of the foreign debt in -- the debt problems in Africa, and whilst I don't pretend to say our problems are like that, maybe one day with our $425 billion foreign debt the Liberal Party might get Bob Geldof in to raise us a little bit of money.

LAURIE OAKES: Mr Shorten, we thank you.

BILL SHORTEN: Thank you.

LAURIE OAKES: Back to you Jana.

Transcript from the Ninemsn Sunday Website.