LAURA JAYES:
In the studio is the Assistant Treasurer, Stephen Jones. Great to see you.
STEPHEN JONES:
Good to see you, Laura.
JAYES:
In 3D, I love that. We’ve just seen this big announcement from the government, your government – 195,000 migrants a year – that is the cap now. It’s a significant increase. Can you tell us how you got to that golden number of 195,000? Why not 200,000? Why not 190?
JONES:
Look, there’s a lot of moving parts here and, quite simply, it’s how much we can digest over a period of time. Everybody is saying migration is a part of the jobs crisis and the jobs and skills crisis we’re facing at the moment – more jobs than people. We can grow our own workforce, but we also need migrants to fill some of those gaps. You go too much higher and you start creating other sort of problems elsewhere – housing issues, the ability to process them in time issues. So, we reckon about 195,000 is what we can digest over the medium term. Of course, we can have conversations about whether that’s the right number down the track, but that’s what we can commit to right now.
JAYES:
So, I mean, does 195,000 migrants a year create housing issues?
JONES:
At 195, no, we think that’s about the right number. But you asked me about what’s magical about that, why don’t we double it, why don’t we triple it, what’s magical about that.
JAYES:
I understand that. Why not just go the round number of 200,000?
JONES:
It’s not the only group of people we’re bringing in. Of course, there’s students on student visas, there’s temporaries on temporary visas as well. But we’ve got a bias towards permanent migration because we think it’s good for the country and good for the economy. Somebody comes here permanently they have got a stake in the country. They’re not two years and then heading off somewhere else. So, it’s better for the community that they are moving into –195. Let’s get to work on processing those visas. We’re not the only –
JAYES:
Nine hundred thousand of them in the system. Catriona Jackson was just on this program as well saying that there needs to be – you need to look after the students who are already here that can fill those skills shortages. That makes sense to me. Are you doing something about that?
JONES:
Really keen to look at what we can do not only for the students while they are students, but ensuring that we can – looking at ways that we can retain them in their areas of skills and areas of skills –
JAYES:
Give them a visa.
JONES:
– to give them work, yeah, so that we can extend them and give them work after they finish their university or their vocational education and training. That’s a win‑win. We’ve got somebody who’s paid for their own education and they’re going to fill a skills shortage place in the workforce. We’d be mad if we didn’t look at it.
JAYES:
If you’re living in Sydney right now and you’re trying to get to work, you’re pretty over train strikes. Now that we’ve seen discussions about multi‑employer bargaining big business are wanting – that could lead to industry‑wide strikes. Are you worried about that?
JONES:
Of course, we’re concerned anywhere where there’s disruption to people’s daily lives. We want to minimise it, but we want to ensure that workers do have the right to bargain and bargain effectively, and for so many that hasn’t been possible because they strike an agreement with their business and that automatically puts their business at a disadvantage to somebody’s who’s directly competing with them in the shop down the road. Particularly, an issue for small business but also an issue in the services industry whether it’s cleaning contractors, aged care, any of these sorts of services industry.
JAYES:
So, you don’t think you’ll see strikes?
JONES:
We think that we can get a more effective approach to bargaining if we provide more flexibility if both the employers and the employees want to do multi‑side agreements, then why would we the Government step in the way and say, “No, you’re not allowed to do that because that’s against some ideology or theory or some law that we’ve created”. That doesn’t make sense.
JAYES:
Will you just step in and say: no strikes?
JONES:
No, I’m not going to step in and say, "no strikes," because we live in a free country.
JAYES:
Can you see it happening?
JONES:
We live in a free country, Laura. Part and parcel of being able to bargain effectively –
JAYES:
But strike – is striking part of bargaining, though?
JONES:
Not even the anti‑union, anti‑Labor Government would remove that right.
JAYES:
Is striking a part of bargaining?
JONES:
It is a part and parcel of the bargaining process.
JAYES:
It’s not working very well in New South Wales, I’ve got to say.
JONES:
It’s an effective part. It’s a part of the bargaining process. But let me just –
JAYES:
But what part of what we’re seeing in Sydney is effective, though?
JONES:
Let me get to heart of the question. This is actually one – this is occurring in one employer, by the way.
JAYES:
Yes.
JONES:
What you’re seeing in Sydney at the moment is one big employer.
JAYES:
I’m not trying to draw a direct line to that, but it’s, you know, it colours the debate if you like.
JONES:
Let me get to the heart of your question.
JAYES:
Please.
JONES:
The bargaining system isn’t working at the moment and small businesses in particular are locked out of it because it’s simply not efficient for them to engage in it. So, if they can directly, or through their agents do an agreement once every three years that covers a whole range of shops and not just one, a whole range of workers and not just one group of workers, that’s a much more efficient and effective way of doing it. If the employers agree, if the workers agree, why should the Government step in and say, “No, you’re not allowed to do that.”
JAYES:
Okay. Would you say that you’d love stage three tax cuts?
JONES:
We made a commitment before the election. We made a commitment before the election that the legislated arrangement would not be displaced by us. Yes, we’ve got big fiscal pressures that we’ve got to deal with, and when we get the jobs summit out of the way, we’ll be working flat out on our October Budget statement, where we’ll be going through all of these issues. But we made a commitment; the Prime Minister is adamant that we’ll keep to our commitment.
JAYES:
Okay. Stephen Jones, great to see you.
JONES:
Good to be with you.