Interview - 4CA Cairns with Murray Jones

E&OE-------------------------------------

MURRAY JONES:

Well, my wife says the salads I make tend to be a bit, you know, a little bit on the dry side. It's definitely something that needs to be addressed.

MINISTER ROBERT:

[Laughs]

MURRAY JONES:

On such a note, and hopefully he's laughing in the background, joining me this morning, the Minister for Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business, the Honourable Stuart Robert. Good morning. How are you this morning, Stuart?

MINISTER ROBERT:

Oh, [laughs] I was a lot better before the daggy dad joke, Murray.

MURRAY JONES:

Well, last time we were on air, I was teasing you about putting your budgie smugglers on in the car on the way to Port Douglas. So, you’ve got to admit, I'm getting slightly better though, you've got to accept that.

MINISTER ROBERT:

Well, that is true. Although last time we spoke a few weeks ago, Warren Entsch and I were going swimming with crocodiles, so, there was probably cause for that.

[Laughter]

MURRAY JONES:

And I reckon his wife reckons he’s a bit on the dry side too, but we won't- we won't go into that. Great to talk to you this morning. And there's a couple of interesting things that I am keen to talk about. Unemployment, and it is quite momentous. There was the meeting of the Reserve Bank yesterday, and of course, Philip Lowe has come out and said the unemployment rate set to fall below four per cent. And of course, this is the first time, I think, for about 48 years. For any government, having such a low rate has got to be a good thing.

MINISTER ROBERT:

No question about it. The Governor of the Reserve Bank will speak at the Press Club today, so we'll get more insight into his view. Where we're sitting right now with very strong employment growth, unemployment 4.2 per cent; an economy growing almost at four per cent this year, which is extraordinary. More jobs or more Australians in jobs now than pre-COVID, the only country really on earth that that's happening. So, you're seeing strong economic growth, strong support from the Government, strong industrial growth and we're going to see a lot more commercialisation happening as well. So, the Prime Minister has said that this is what we're looking to do. We’ll continue to double down on getting Australians into work. So, by the second half of this year, unemployment can have a three in front of it, which is momentous. It's extraordinary.

MURRAY JONES:

Now look, the value of those wages tend to be continually eroding because of a lack- you know, certainty of wages growth. One should imagine that, you know, if we've got that unemployment rate down fairly low, it would be a matter, of course, that the wage growth would actually follow suit. But some of the pundits are suggesting that wage growth is still lagging. That's something that does need to be addressed.

MINISTER ROBERT:

There’s a fair bit of inertia in the Australian wages market, very different to overseas. If you think about how wages are set in Australia, a very strong central industrial umpire through the Fair Work Commission, strong use of award wages, strong use of enterprise bargaining agreements, are all centrally set. So that provides an inertia in the market. But as you move towards full employment, or if you want the technical term, the Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment – the NAIRU – that’s when you'll start to see competitive tension, that people looking for a job can get a job. And that's the opportunity now for us to skill Australians and really make a dent in the level of Australians who aren't working. There's still 80,000 young Australians, 15 to 22, aren't working and aren't studying. That number should be way lower than that, and that's where we're going with getting these unemployment numbers down.

MURRAY JONES:

And I guess that’s one of the things that, I guess, is actually hidden behind that percentage growth that we’re talking about, and it dropping to below 4 per cent. Of course, that’s actually people who actually are looking for work and there is that percentage that you’ve just spoken about that are out of work and not particularly looking for work. So, I guess, in a lot of ways, that is a drain on the economy.

MINISTER ROBERT:

It is in terms of the automatic stabilisers, or the welfare payments. So we want as many people actively in the market - so working. We also want to see the participation rate continue to increase, which is the number of Australians who want to work, who want to participate. Since 2013 when we came to Government, Murray, we’ve had a million more women join the workforce, which in terms of choice for them is just wonderful. And we want to see those numbers continue to rise.

MURRAY JONES:

Well look, let’s talk a little bit more about research and science in Australia. As you’ll well remember from a few weeks ago, a group have come out and said research in Australia is becoming political and short sighted. We are at a crossroads where, unfortunately, a larger percentage of Australians are losing their faith in science. And, of course, it’s one of the cornerstones of our future - building our future, and building the correct future for ourselves and, of course, our children. You’ve been talking about the commercialisation of research in the last 24 hours or so, which I think for businesses makes a lot of sense. How does that balance up with respect to our traditional forms of grant funding for scientists? And of course, that more commercial side? How does it all fall into place? How does it balance out?

MINISTER ROBERT:

We put $2.8 billion into research every year through our block research grants, our discovery grants, and that’s excluding the Medical Future Fund and the Medical and National Health Research grant structures. And that $2.8 billion is an extraordinary amount. A lot of it goes into blue sky research - we’re one of the top six in the world. 

But when it comes to commercialising it, taking that research and converting it into economic activity and jobs, we slip to 26th in the world, and that’s not a good thing. So this is where the $2.2 billion announcement yesterday from the Prime Minister, in terms of our commercialisation action plan, is so important, especially the $1.6 billion, to say: we’re going to fund really good research that’s occurred, and to get it from what’s called technical risk levels right the way through to commercialisation. And really start to expand that commercialisation because we want more success stories. Remember, WiFi came from CSIRO, Murray. Every time you’re connecting to your Bluetooth headphones or you’re playing your music at home, that is an Australian invention, and we want more of those. 

MURRAY JONES:

So we are talking about research in the private sphere as well as the public sphere, because I guess there's some differences between the two. And maybe it's more in the public sphere that it's become a little bit more controversial in recent times.

MINISTER ROBERT:

We want to connect the two. Most research in Australia occurs in our universities, they’re world leading. It's about getting our universities to move from just researching for the point of publishing, for researching to the point of commercialising and building the economic pie in Australia. And the entire commercialisation effort we've got is bridging that divide and bringing those two together.

MURRAY JONES:

And that hopefully it will assist in, you know, a situation as I suggested earlier on, that there's a lot of people in this country more and more that are anti-science. We really need to bring back that faith in science. Got to get to news. But look, we've covered some important stuff. It's going to be an interesting three or four months ahead. But great to talk to you this morning. Make sure you drop in. I'll give you a tease next time you come in to Cairns and drop into 4CA. Stuart Robert, it's been great to talk you this morning. Thank you so much for your time.

MINISTER ROBERT:

Great to talk to you, Murray. Cheers.