Sky News Live Afternoon Agenda with Kieran Gilbert
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KIERAN GILBERT:
Let's bring in the Employment Minister. Stuart Robert joins me live from Sydney. Minister, thanks for your time. I want to start with that Victorian budget, this $3 billion surcharge or levy on businesses that pay more than $10 million in wages. So larger companies. It's quite a contrast with the approach as announced by your colleague Josh Frydenberg last week.
MINISTER ROBERT:
Well, it's a typical Labor tax, Kieran. The Labor Party wants to do a range of different options in different work. And what do they do? They put a tax on it. Now, we're also funding mental health services to the tune of many billions of dollars, especially through heads of health. And we haven't done it with a new tax. So Labor wants to tax their way out of difficulties. I think they're going to find that a new tax and a new burden is not what business needs right now.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Will that cost jobs in this recovery phase, which the government is adamant is still continuing?
MINISTER ROBERT:
It has to. As soon as you put an extra tax, an extra levy, an extra burden on business, business has to find it somewhere. So what we are seeing is the Commonwealth is leading on is how we provide incentives, skills, subsidies into training to allow businesses like this one here, at Baker & Provan in Western Sydney, how they employ apprentices. And I’ve been meeting with those apprentices today. But you don't do it with an extra tax. Baker & Provan is not going to employ Australians if we tax them more. They will employ Australians if we stump up and help them with skills and training.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Treasurer Pallas made the point in his speech that some of these businesses, or many businesses have been profitable through the pandemic and with the assistance of taxpayers’ support. So why shouldn't they chip in for a worthy initiative like combating mental health problems?
MINISTER ROBERT:
I don't know why the Labor Party has a problem with profitable businesses, Kieran. Profitable businesses pay tax, and its tax that allows us to run the country. Labor seems to think that a business that’s actually doing well, needs to be hit with extra taxes. Well, the taxes that those businesses pay, including existing payroll tax, the stamp duties they pay in terms of transitioning from property. That's what funds the government right now. And profitable businesses allow Australia to come back. Labor governments seem to have a view that if it moves, tax it. If it doesn't, subsidise it, and then tax it. We'd rather actually help skill it and train it and grow it. And I guess that's the big difference between the Labor Party and the Liberal National Parties, Kieran.
MINISTER ROBERT:
The unemployment rate has fallen to 5.5 per cent, but the number of jobs has also fallen because the participation rate is down. Is that all due to the end of JobKeeper? The fact that the participation rate has fallen?
MINISTER ROBERT:
Unemployment at 5.5 per cent is pleasing. What's really pleasing; in the month that JobKeeper ended, 33,800 full time jobs have been added to the full time jobs in Australia, now at 8.88 million is the highest we've seen it. That's extraordinary. Extraordinary. The Labor Party was out there saying that there's going to be this great cliff for full time workers, but 33,800 extra to the highest full time workers in our nation's history. This shows our plan’s working, Kieran. It shows that our approach is working in stark contrast to the Labor Party in Victoria that are trying new taxes, I suggest.
KIERAN GILBERT:
This decline in the participation rate, is that a concern or is this just a usual sort of fluctuation that we should expect?
MINISTER ROBERT:
Well, we see seasonal fluctuations. You're seeing the number of job or hours work decline because you had the Easter holidays in there. And, of course, we saw participation rate at its highest level ever last month. It's now dropped slightly back to its second highest level ever. So you're always going to see the ebbs and flows in the marketplace. There's no question about that. But what it does show is the plan’s working.
And we need to stick to our recovery plan. We need to stick to what we're doing in encouraging businesses like the one I've been visiting today with Melissa McIntosh. And if we can do that, if we can drive a jobs lead to recovery, I think our nation is in a very good place to continue to move forward successfully, profitably, and more importantly, to engage as many Australians in the labour market as we can.
KIERAN GILBERT:
We need to improve the speed of the vaccination rollout and also to deal with the vaccine hesitancy. Why doesn't the government spend and have a proper advertising campaign? The government, they- well, as you well know, it did for the COVID-19 app, which ended up being a flop, but at least it was- you know, people knew about it.
MINISTER ROBERT:
Well, the COVID app, of course, just wasn't used by state governments, in which Victoria was the state government that least used it, least.
But putting that aside and moving forward, there's a rolling advertising campaign as we move through 1A, 1B, and now into 2A. And you'll be seeing more of that as the days progress forward to really encourage Australians to keep going, getting vaccinated. We saw two days ago the highest numbers of vaccinations on a day-by-day average and here in New South Wales, something like $30,000 or 30,000 people a day are being vaccinated.
So the numbers are continuing to build as we continue to get access to supply and we'll continue to build right throughout the year working with the states and territories on this. And I think working with the states and territories and the Prime Minister pulling National Cabinet together so collegiately is really making a difference.
KIERAN GILBERT:
You've done some work on the international vaccine passport idea. Is this state-to-state idea of a passport - once people get vaccines - is that really a prospect there? Because the New South Wales Premier, for once, she says it's a ridiculous notion.
MINISTER ROBERT:
Well if you step back, one, every Australian that’s vaccinated, the record of their vaccination is the Australian Immunisation Register. This is an existing register that we've been using for many years. Indeed, 5.5 million Australians used this register last year in many ways, for school camps and to show their vaccination history.
We're using that existing register to show that you've received COVID vaccine and you can see that on Medicare Express Plus app right now or go to myGov and there'll be a tile there and you'll be able to see it. So that vaccination credential, each citizen has got their own. What they do with the citizen or what that citizen does with that vaccination credential will be up to them.
Now, states and territories are responsible for public health orders. They're responsible for any requirement that citizens may have to use that credential. But the key thing from the Commonwealth is that we provide that credential in the citizen’s hands. So if they need to use it because of what a state and territory has done for a public health order, they'll be able to do that.
KIERAN GILBERT:
But as a Liberal, the idea that you would have interstate passports or travel documents, that surely wouldn't sit well with you?
MINISTER ROBERT:
We want a free moving economy as much as possible. We don't want to see states putting up borders or restrictions. And New South Wales, the state I’m in here, has done a really good job at tracking and tracing any of their COVID outbreaks to their enduring credit.
So we want to see borders come down, not go up. But for example, states and territories in the past have issued public health orders to say you must have a flu injection to go and see mum in aged care. Certainly in Queensland for me to see my mum in aged care I have to have a flu injection. So states and territories do use public health orders. What the Commonwealth has ensured is that if the states do do such a public health order, the citizen has got that COVID credential in their hand.
KIERAN GILBERT:
And finally, my colleague Andrew Clennell has reported on the election timing that preselections in the seats of Gilmore, Greenway, Eden-Monaro, Warringah, they're all for the Liberal Party happening not until November. So that’s a pretty good indication we're heading for an election in March or April next year, isn't it?
MINISTER ROBERT:
Each state and territory works out their own timings for these things. My state Queensland, for the most part, has secured most of the preselections. There's a number coming up in the seats of Bowman and other areas. We'll all just wait and see. Kieran.
KIERAN GILBERT:
Wait and see, okay. Stuart Robert, thanks for joining us live from Penrith today, the Employment Minister. Talk to you soon.
MINISTER ROBERT:
Thanks Kieran.