TRANSCRIPT – ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING

Angie Bell MP
Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education
Shadow Minister for Youth
Federal Member for Moncrieff

TRANSCRIPT

ABC AFTERNOON BRIEFING

3 December 2024

Subjects: Woolworths, Commonwealth Bank, Colin Boyce comments

E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………………………

GREG JENNETT:

We might pick that up and some other matters with our political panel. Let’s introduce them now as a combination for the last time in 2024. Joining us Labor frontbencher Kristy McBain, welcome back, Kristy and regular sparring partner LNP frontbencher Angie Bell is with us too. Welcome to you too Angie.

We’ll say some farewells at the end. We’ve been doing a lot of that this week. Why don’t we start out on grocery stores industrial action? Kristy, as the Regional and Territories Minister, I’m sure you’ll be keeping your eye on the possibility that Woolworths can’t get the goods out of its major Victorian warehouse, thus leading shortages in that state, in New South Wales, and in the ACT. What needs to be done to head this off?

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:

Yeah, well Woolworths obviously have to come to the table and speak with their workers. I mean, they’ve made a $1.7 billion profit this year, and that’s largely based on the workers that do the work for them in distribution centres, in our supermarkets, the farmers that provide them the produce to sell in store. We know across regional Australia, our farmers aren’t getting a good deal, and we’re addressing that through additional funding through the ACCC, and making the supermarket Code of Conduct mandatory. We know that consumers haven’t been getting a good deal, and we’ve seen a range of issues from shrinkflation to, you know, specials, hijacking, but they absolutely need to sit down with their workers and have a good conversation, because without them, they don’t have a business.

GREG JENNETT:

All right Angie, Kristy is putting the weight squarely on Woolworths’ shoulders. Do you think public support for that position might be maintained if the shelves start emptying out?

ANGIE BELL MP:

I think it’s easy for the government to blame others on this, but this is the symptom of the Albanese Government’s disastrous workplace relations laws. We’ve seen strikes now across a number of sectors Greg, this is just one. We’ve seen it with transport unions, with the trains in Sydney, of course, we’ve seen it now in supermarkets, but also building sites, where we’ve seen construction stop.

Make no bones about it, this is about bad industrial relation laws and everybody striking now at a time when it hurts consumers most, at Christmas, when everybody wants to go to the shops, when they are paying more for those groceries that are on the shelf, when they want to buy their Christmas pudding and there isn’t one, it ends up costing the consumer more.

And the fault of this falls squarely on the Albanese Government. Now, what is the Prime Minister doing about this? He’s not lifting a finger. He could be calling the unions. He could be doing something. But again, we see a Prime Minister who is hapless and weak and doing nothing.

GREG JENNETT:

All right, Kristy would have pay to do a little bit of contingency emergency planning here, just in case this drags on and you’ve actually got food shortages out there?

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:

I find it a little bit offensive that Angie laughs at workers striking for better pay. And you can actually look on record, there’s been less industrial action in the two and a half years that we’ve been in government than the previous government. This is about making sure that people on minimum wages get paid better. You know, as a government, we’ve backed that. We’ve backed aged care workers, we backed child care workers, we backed people getting a pay rise who are on the minimum wage. People are doing it tough out there, and absolutely they need to make sure that they’re getting their fair share. As I said, Woolworths made $1.7 billion, our farmers need a better slice of the action, our workers need a better slice of the action, and our consumers need a better deal from these big companies. There is absolutely work that the union and the Woolworths can do when they come together and actually sit down and have a conversation. That should be the starting point, not laughing at workers trying to get a fair deal.

GREG JENNETT:

The action is being described as…. Go on Angie.

ANGIE BELL MP:

That is Kristy twisting the words around to suit her agenda. Nobody’s laughing at workers and their wages. That is a ridiculous thing to say. Kristy, this is about making life harder for Australians, and this is what your government under Labor has done around industrial relations laws. Supposedly reform, but no, making it more difficult, making the consumer at the end of the day have to get in their car and go to a different supermarket so that they can get the goods that they want for Christmas at an increased price of 11.8 per cent, by the way.

GREG JENNETT:

All right, let’s press on.

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:

Consumers are workers too Angie, don’t forget that.

GREG JENNETT:

Okay, that particular industrial action I was going to say before is rated as indefinite at the moment. So, let’s just watch how far it progresses, sticking on cost of living issues and again, I’ll let you kick this one off Kirsty. The Commonwealth Bank fee impulse that we heard Stephen Jones speaking out about a moment ago, $3 for in person withdrawals. Very big issue in regional Australia. You’re imploring Commonwealth Bank to do something about it. Can you stop them? Will you stop them?

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:

Again, it’s really frustrating when we see big corporations making decisions like this, which impact on their consumers. We already pay transaction fees. We already pay, you know, account fees to our banks. This is just another way that the bank is trying to get more money off its consumers. I don’t see a bank in Australia that’s lodged a deficit in a long period of time. I’ve seen though a lot of banks close up their regional branches, which means a lot of us have less services now than we’ve had in many, many years. So Commonwealth Bank absolutely need to rethink this. We’ve said that we’ll take some action on banks charging us to use our funds through debit cards, and absolutely, we’ll continue to look at what we can put in place, because consumers shouldn’t be slogged for going into the bank to speak to a branch manager or a teller. And we also have a lot of community members that, for a variety of reasons, don’t use ATMs, and they don’t like using cards. They want to go in, they want to speak to someone, and they want to get a service, which is why they pay account fees for

GREG JENNETT:

Yeah, typically they are older Australians. Angie Bell, what springs to mind for you? I mean, should anything be done? An intervention here?

ANGIE BELL MP:

Well, the banks need to do the right thing by their customers. There’s no doubt about that. To your listeners, well, everybody will agree that they have to communicate why they are hiking these fees at a time just before Christmas, in a nation that is going backwards, our standard of living has gone backwards.

The cost of everything has gone up by 10 per cent, electricity bills are up by 30 per cent, we haven’t received the $275 that the Prime Minister promised. Instead, Australians are paying an extra $1,000, mortgage rates are through the roof. Families simply can’t afford it, and so this does feel like another slug on top of that, but it is because of the mismanagement of our economy under the Albanese Labor Government, and it’s only a Coalition Government that will get back to basics on our economic agenda.

GREG JENNETT:

All right, let’s go to something, and I’ll let you lead out on this Angie, in a debate last week, your LNP colleague from Queensland, Colin Boyce, made a contribution. This was about the government Bill that will require larger companies to report and meet standards for gender pay equity. Colin Boyce says many women don’t want to be CEOs of companies or take leadership roles. You shouldn’t be doing comparisons between, well, basically, child care workers and the construction industry. That’s in a nutshell. Angie, is it the Coalition’s position that child care workers are not comparable to construction workers? And if so, why is it because they’re less skilled?

ANGIE BELL MP:

No, well, look this comment from Colin Boyce is simply his business. It’s up to him. What he says as a backbencher, he made that comment, that’s a matter for him.

What I will say is that he has been to my office at least a dozen times during this last period, the last term, advocating for better child care services in his electorate and his region as well. And he knows that access and workforce are the two big problems when it comes to child care, and he also knows that the Coalition has supported the government with all of their measures.

We haven’t got in the way of higher child care subsidies for families. We haven’t got in the way of higher wages for child care workers. And so the government has been spruiking from time to time in Question Time, under Parliamentary privilege, you would have heard a few of the Ministers and the Prime Minister say that we didn’t support these measures. Well, I’m saying to Australians that we did support these measures we didn’t get in the road. I just wanted to highlight that. Colin Boyce is a great advocate for his community, and he cares deeply about child care.

GREG JENNETT:

All right, doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, but Kristy, what’s your response to that contribution from Colin?

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:

Pretty disappointing, to be frank. It just continues to perpetuate the myth that somehow female dominated industries aren’t as valued as others, you know, and unfortunately for Angie, she’s one of two frontbench members of the Opposition. They have a record on this, and they absolutely need to improve on it. And I think Angie’s put in a really difficult position herself trying to defend what was said. You know, there is a big gender pay gap some of those big companies where you are doing the same work, but women are still paid less, is really unfortunate, and it’s one of the reasons that we’ve continued to back pay rises for female dominated industries, whether that’s aged care, whether that’s childcare, whether that’s the minimum wage increases that we’ve seen, it is incredibly important that we continue to increase women’s participation in the workforce, and we have done that under our government. In the last two years, there’s more women participating in the workforce than ever before. We’ve increased paid parental leave and put superannuation on that so that women don’t retire with less than men. There’s a long way to go here, and unfortunately, contributions like this continue to stir up that myth that somehow women’s work is not valued.

GREG JENNETT:

And just a final word for you on this, Angie, what is the imperative? Is it closing the gap within sectors so as between male and female workers in particular sectors, or across sectors, as Colin was arguing here.

ANGIE BELL MP:

Well, look, I think it’s important that if you’re in the same job, as a parliamentarian, a male and a female are paid the same amount. If they’re on the same level, if they’re a Minister, they’re paid the same amount. So of course, it’s important for women’s workforce participation as well.

I will say to Kristy, that there are more than two women on the frontbench of the Liberal and National parties in our Parliament, and she really is taking that out of context, which I don’t think really is very fair. But we do believe in reward for effort. We do believe that people should be paid the right amount of money for a hard day’s work, and that’s a very important value of the Liberal National parties.

GREG JENNETT:

All right, look, time is going to beat us today, Kristy and Angie, but as it is my duty with everyone this week, I really want to thank you for your involvement. Time is going to be very, very short here, so we’ll just have time for farewell, but we really do appreciate it.

KRISTY MCBAIN MP:

Merry Christmas.

ANGIE BELL MP:

Thanks.

[ENDS]