More than a year after being rebuffed in the Federal Court, then politically critiqued and subsequently discredited, the Registered Organisations Commission (ROC) continues to take advantage of the Australian taxpayers, says Tony Burke, Labor’s shadow minister for industrial relations.

Following a Senate Estimates hearing on Tuesday revealing that the ROC has spent over $1.3 million of taxpayer funds in a dogged pursuit of the Australian Workers Union (AWU), with $344,881 of that total coming after the Federal Court ruled last October that the ROC’s raids on the Melbourne and Sydney offices of the AWU in 2017 were invalid, Burke has called for the ROC to surrender its pursuit of the AWU towards an apparent High Court appeal.

“A year ago, the Federal Court quashed the ROC’s investigation into the AWU, finding there were no ‘reasonable grounds’ for it and the Commissioner had acted ‘based on a suspicion’,” Burke said.

“The ROC was fatally compromised by this ruling. It was their first major investigation and they botched it completely.

“But instead of abandoning this ridiculous case, they decided to double down and waste even more money on an appeal,” added Burke.

While the ROC is currently appealing the Federal Court’s initial decision centered around the AWU’s series of donations to activist group GetUp! in 2006, with all signs pointing towards an appeal to the High Court if the appeal is unsuccessful, Burke cites an inappropriate timing for the ROC to persist in its chase of a union whose origins were formed in the shadow of the Eureka Rebellion in historic Creswick, near Ballarat, in 1886 and claims to possess a total membership of over 72,000 workers (as of 2018).

And Burke has even gone to the extent of making an appeal of his own – to appeal to the Morrison government to step in and put a stop to the ROC’s agenda.

“As we head towards a trillion dollars of Liberal debt, the Government plans to borrow more to fund this toxic campaign, treating taxpayers’ money as if it was their own,” Burke said.

Burke’s points about the ROC are well-founded. Since its creation in 2017, and acting under the auspices of the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO) to monitor and regulate trade unions and employer organisations, the ROC’s dogged determination of its fight against the AWU appears to be matched only by incidents of its own incompetence.

• In 2018, it got caught out accidentally leaking information from a whistleblower’s e-mails, even after the whistleblower had insistently requested that the ROC not to contact their organisation, thereby blowing their cover and voiding their anonymity.
• Ahead of the 2017 raids, Senator Michaelia Cash – then the government’s minister for employment – clumsily denied that her tipping off of the raids to the ROC and a number of media outlets, along with her former media advisor David De Garis, were politically-motivated actions against GetUp! or then-Labor leader Bill Shorten, who served as the AWU’s leader at the time of the donations. Instead, she blamed the ROC for not notifying her office “as the relevant minister” about the raids.
• In the 2018 federal budget, when the likes of the ABC, the FWO, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) all received cuts to their funding, the ROC received an increase, thereby signalling clues and allegations that the organisation acts as a political operative unit rather than to moderate over the union movement.

Michaelia Cash, Employment Minister in 2017 (Photo from abc.net.au)

And whereas Burke maintains that the ROC was “fatally compromised” by the initial ruling from the Federal Court over the AWU raids – or in his view, perhaps should have been shelved permanently – the agency has now lost any credibility in the eyes of the public.

“The Australian public simply cannot have any faith in the ROC’s competence or its impartiality,” said Burke.

“It’s a biased and politicised anti-worker body set up by the anti-worker Liberals and Nationals for the sole purpose of attacking unions – the organisations that fight for secure jobs, better wages and safer workplaces,” he added.

So does the ROC act as a political entity, or a watchdog overseeing the actions of the union movement?

“Our key objective is to encourage behaviours in registered organisations that see them consistently focused on acting in the best interests of their members, ensuring members’ money is spent in a way that is transparent, properly authorised and which complies with their obligations under the Registered Organisations Act, and their rules,” says Mark Bielecki, the commissioner of the ROC, in a statement defending its own transparency.

But as the AWU and its legal representation at Maurice Blackburn contend, even at the time of the initial ruling, the ROC fails its own litmus test regarding its transparency.

“As today’s judgement makes clear, the ROC had no proper legal basis to conduct an investigation into the AWU’s compliance with its rules some ten years earlier. The investigation into that matter was tainted by illegality and so the court has ruled it was invalid,” Josh Bornstein, the principal lawyer at Maurice Blackburn who represented the AWU in the case, said at the time of the ruling.

And Bornstein’s statement was echoed by the AWU itself on the day.

“This has been an exhausting, resource-draining, and distracting process for our union, but it’s a vital part of democracy that the actions of public agencies can and should be held to account,” said Daniel Walton, the AWU’s national secretary.

So it appears that the ROC – regardless of whether the topic consists of its finances, budgets, agendas or the execution of its official duties – needs to clean up its house, based on the views of its critics.

After a brief respite from the perils of the rising unemployment figures which have become a symptom of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has reported another rise in those numbers – as well as a drastic rise in the numbers of what it terms “unemployed families”.

While employment fell by 30,000 people for the month of September – rising roughly 0.2 per cent to 6.9 per cent, according to the ABS – a separate ABS survey revealed the more shocking revelations that more than one in five families are jobless, up nearly two per cent in the last 12 months.

According to analysts at the ABS, this – like seemingly most occurrences in 2020 – is quite unprecedented.

“With the disruption of COVID-19, there was an 11.5 per cent increase in families without an employed person in them, between June 2019 and June 2020. This was larger than the annual increases seen in earlier economic downturns in 1982 (9.9 per cent) and 1992 (9.0 per cent),” said Bjorn Jarvis, the ABS’s head of labour statistics.

While the ABS defines a “family” as any two or more people involved in a relationship of any type co-habitating within the same household, the figure of 21.2 per cent is padded by pensioner couples and parents voluntarily out of the workforce for the purpose of caring for infants, and when those demographics are taken into account, the figure dips slightly to 17.0 per cent.

But even with that slight reduction, the sharp increases points towards the added strain on families and their lifestyles.

“Families with dependants have a lower level of joblessness than older families, but the extent of job losses during the COVID-19 period resulted in a larger annual increase in the number of jobless families with dependants,” said Jarvis.

And then there are some of the shocking and alarming subsets within those broad family statistics:

• For couple families with dependants, joblessness increased 53.5% since 2019
• 2% of families with children under 15 were jobless families
• Couple families with dependants where neither parent was employed increased 39.5% since 2019
• 3% of couple families with children under 15 have one parent employed

Also, it’s not just the parents, but also the working young as well. In addition to the ABS, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) points out a youth unemployment rate of 14.5 per cent, directly attributed to the recent cuts in the JobKeeper and JobSeeker subsidies.

And in examining the general unemployment rate of 6.9 per cent and the under-employment rate of 11.4 per cent, the ACTU sees that those figures are only going to get worse without installing key programs that will buck the trends.

“Unemployment increased – especially for young people – as the Morrison Government cut back critical support payments and with millions reliant on the JobKeeper program for work,” said Michele O’Neil, the ACTU’s national president.

“Now is not the time for the government to be cutting back. 160,000 workers are expected to lose their jobs between now and the end of the year. The government needs to recommit to supporting these workers and start creating secure jobs to lift the economy out of recession,” O’Neil added.

And the impact of the pandemic and nation’s recession has not been lost on key ministers, either.

“Young people have been disproportionately hit by the COVID pandemic – suffering from high unemployment, social isolation, depleted retirement savings, interruptions to education and training, and severe mental health impacts,” said Brendan O’Connor, the ALP’s shadow minister for employment and industry.

While 3.5 million workers are still receiving a reduced JobKeeper subsidy, the youth unemployment rate worsened by 0.4 percent in the last month and increased by 2.7 per cent in the last 12 months.

O’Neil says the any interpretation of these sets of numbers cannot bode well for stimulating an economy out of the depths of a recession – especially given that the Morrison government, in addition to the JobKeeper and JobSeeker cuts and the unknown future of the JobSeeker subsidy beyond the end of the year, did not take the ACTU up on its outstanding offer to adopt its National Economic Reconstruction Plan (NERP) over the past few months, and particularly in a federal budget which was announced ten days ago.

“The government should reverse the cuts to JobSeeker and JobKeeper and expand JobKeeper to cover the industries and workers who have been excluded from government support since the start of the pandemic,” said O’Neil.

“It is incomprehensible that in the midst of a recession the government is refusing to provide clarity about the future of the JobSeeker payment. It should reverse the cuts and guarantee the payment at the original rate into the future.

“The ACTU’s [NERP proposal] lays out how strong government investment in infrastructure, manufacturing, tourism, training and early childhood education can create the secure jobs we need and put money in the hands of working people who will spend it,” added O’Neil.

With the cuts to JobKeeper already set to doom the Australian economy to the tune of an estimated $1.52 billion per fortnight versus before the cuts were made, various shadow ministers continue to assail the government on its inaction towards attacking the unemployment figures effectively.

“The government’s budget racked up one trillion dollars of debt, but failed to include a comprehensive plan for jobs, and locked in damaging cuts to JobKeeper in the face of rising unemployment,” said O’Connor.

Meanwhile, Linda Burney, the shadow minister for families and social services, spares thoughts for those in the over-50 demographic who must now compete with their under-35 counterparts receiving a proposed wage-subsidy scheme from the new federal budget.

And Burney puts it in the context of other failed government programs for older Australians.

“The government’s Restart program, which it touts as its signature policy for Australians over 50, has been an utter failure in getting older people into work. Not only is it undersubscribed, 40 per cent of workers under this program were without work within three months,” said Burney.

“These Australians are rapidly approaching the JobSeeker Christmas cliff with no certainty about the future of their support payments and will now find themselves competing with a subsidised younger workforce,” Burney added.

A three-year storyline ordeal for a pair of Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) journalists may be over, but the stigma upon their federal investigations remains, and will do so until some sort of media law reform guaranteeing a freedom of the press occurs, says the Media, Arts, and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA).

ABC journalist Dan Oakes and his producer Sam Clark received the best possible news on Thursday when the Australian Commonwealth’s Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) chose not to prosecute the pair over the network’s 2017 airing of “The Afghan Files” on its “Four Corners” series.

The episode, which alleged war crimes being committed by Australian Special Forces to the extent of killing unarmed Afghan civilians, led to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) raiding the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in June of last year, two years after the airing of the documentary which the ABC maintained was aired in the public interest.

In determining that the role of public interest journalism “does not require a prosecution” with the circumstances in the case against Oakes, the AFP came to the concluding action to drop the case.

Clark had his possibility of being charged by the AFP dropped in July.

But with the grey areas existing over the boundaries of public interest journalism and an overall freedom of the press still existing in the aftermath of what Oakes and Clark had to endure, the MEAA maintains that media reform laws in this area must be undertaken.

“It’s disturbing that Australia can operate like a police state by criminalising journalism, raiding journalists in their homes and workplaces, and threatening them with jail for their legitimate journalism that is clearly in the national interest,” Marcus Strom, the MEAA’s national president of its media arm, said in a reaction to the news which benefits the ABC journalists.

The MEAA and the ABC have welcomed the AFP’s decision, but still critique whether the original actions of the AFP should have occurred in the first place, if Australia had a true established set of policies on press freedom.

“That story, reported in July 2017, is true. But because they told the truth the ABC was subjected to a nine-hour raid by the Australian Federal Police in June 2019 – almost two years after the allegations were aired,” said Strom.

“That is a clear indication that Australia’s laws must be reformed.

“These laws allow government agencies to operate in secret. These laws punish journalists and whistleblowers for upholding the public’s right to know and are being used in response to news stories that embarrass governments. They are being used to pursue and punish whistleblowers, and to threaten and muzzle the media,” added Strom.

While federal Attorney-General Christian Porter previously said last year that he’d discourage the prosecution of journalists in the future, by the AFP or any other law enforcement agency in the name of press freedom – something which Peter Dutton, the minister for home affairs, and whose portfolio the AFP falls under, concurs with – the government’s opposition communications ministers have reinforced views that the role of a free press being essential to upholding the values of democracy.

In defence of the likes of Oakes and Clark, they and everyone else in the journalism industry should be able to execute their duties without fear or favour, contends Michelle Rowland, the ALP’s shadow communications minister.

“Labor believes journalists should never face the prospect of being charged, or even jailed, just for doing their jobs,” said Rowland.

“A strong and independent media is vital to holding governments to account and to informing the Australian public,” Rowland added.

Rowland also emphasised that since the release of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) inquiry into freedom of the press in August, a report which unanimously concluded that existing Australian laws do not adequately support press freedom or protect journalists, the Morrison government has yet to act upon its findings.

“The Morrison Government can no longer hide behind these legal proceedings, and must now commit to implementing the bipartisan recommendations in the PJCIS report that would improve press freedom and provide better legal protections for journalists,” Rowland said.

Meanwhile, Andrew Hastie, the chair of the PJCIS, expressed that the body encourages the advent of press freedom legislation in the wake of his body’s report.

“The issues related to law enforcement, intelligence powers and press freedoms are complex, and this inquiry has allowed the Committee to examine a range of matters in great detail,” said Hastie.

“This is an evolving area of law, and the Committee welcomes recent steps taken by Government to bolster the decision-making process when journalists and media organisations are involved in the investigation and prosecution of unauthorised disclosure of information,” Hastie added.

Liberal MP Andrew Hastie, chair of the PJCIS. (Photo courtesy of abc.net.au.)

Sarah Hanson-Young, the Greens’ communications portfolio holder, has gone one step further than Hastie in calling for an actual legislative policy on what defines press freedom, instead of the current de facto policies which are open to broad interpretation.

“This case was designed to have a chilling effect on the media by a secretive government,” said Hanson-Young.

“Mr Oakes’ reporting was always in the public interest and the fact it’s taken so long for the AFP and CDPP to reach this conclusion highlights our laws are broken and need fixing.

“Journalism is not a crime. We need a Media Freedom Act to ensure no journalist is treated like this ever again,” added Hanson-Young.

As Hanson-Young has vowed to introduce the Greens’ Media Freedom Act into the Senate when Parliament sits next week, she has outlined the Act as:

• Ensuring a contested warrants process, where law enforcement would need to apply to a judge to search a media outlet or access a journalist’s metadata;
• Protecting whistleblowers by introducing a public interest defence
• Putting the onus on prosecutors to disprove public interest rather than journalists to prove it
• and enacting shield laws on an overall basis to protect journalists from being forced to reveal their sources

And Strom, with the MEAA’s position, advocates for any sort of legislation on media reform, including the Greens’ Media Freedom Act, for the sense that it would be better than the current situation.

“That undermines our democracy because these [current] laws have a chilling effect on journalism by using jail terms to punish legitimate scrutiny of government,” said Strom.

Recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) out on Tuesday has confirmed what many people have already feared: that a direct correlation exists between the changing nature of Australian households amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specifically, guided via a survey that the ABS executed to a sample size of 1500 people nationwide from mid-September, the questionnaire has exposed the changes in families’ habits in work, education and finances as of now versus when the pandemic was declared.

Focusing on the last of these first, a degree of importance must be placed in the context of the recent reductions of the JobSeeker stimulus, with that stimulus alone having dropped from $550 to $250 per fortnight to each recipient within the last fortnight.

While 72 per cent of respondents reported that their household finances remained unchanged and 12 per cent noticed some improvement in them, 16 per cent felt that they had worsened to any extent – one in eight, says the ABS survey.

Meanwhile, with one in ten Australians saying that they were receiving the stimulus, 71 per cent of those responding to the ABS survey said they were using it to pay household bills, and with those partaking in this portion of the survey free to choose as many responses as whatever suits their situations, 67 per cent said they used the extra money to purchase anything qualifying as “household supplies”, including groceries.

Compare that to those on the JobKeeper payment – which has also been reduced over the last fortnight – with one in seven workers (14 per cent) said to be receiving it, according to the ABS, with 60 per cent of respondents replying that their old regular fortnightly pay was higher, and only 44 pe rcent of them actually being paid the difference by their employer.

And as was the case with the survey’s respondents on JobSeeker, where more than one response on the expenses area could be denoted, 77 per cent said they were using the subsidy on paying household bills while 47 per cent were using it to pay the rent or their mortgage.

Those financial statistics, in painting a dire picture about how some people are coping during the pandemic, were compiled before the cuts to JobSeeker and JobKeeper kicked in.

Now imagine these same people with less money, and trying to meet those basic commitments.

And despite what Josh Frydenberg, the federal treasurer, has said to the contrary, no guarantees exist that JobSeeker won’t be returning to the old dreaded $40-per-day NewStart rate come year’s end, according to Anne Ruston, the government’s social services minister, who remains non-committal on the issue.

Linda Burney (Photo courtesy of abc.net.au)

The release of the ABS’s survey results coincides with Anti-Poverty Week, and Linda Burney, the ALP’s shadow minister for families and social services, has announced some other very real statistics about those struggling.

“[Over] the past 12 months, more than one in five Australians have experienced food insecurity, and charities and emergency relief providers are being overwhelmed by a surge in demand for their services – one in three are accessing emergency relief for the first time,” Burney said, as she also cited further data from the nation’s largest food relief agency.

Other aspects of the ABS’s survey with regard to work and education also reveal some figures reflecting dramatic shifts.

To which Michelle Marquardt, the ABS’s head of household surveys, said: “The latest data highlight the continued impact that COVID-19 and the related restrictions are having on Australians and their families.”

• Nearly one in three, 31 per cent, of workers who could work from home actually did so at the time of the September survey, versus the pre-pandemic figure of 12 per cent.
• With regard to education matters, just over one in three households, to the tune of 35 per cent, kept their children home due to COVID-19 concerns, with 17 per cent across Australia doing so due to illness and the same percentage nationally due to school closures.
• In Victoria, that figure jumped to 83 per cent, compared to 21 per cent in New South Wales and 19 per cent for the remainder of Australia.
• And 39 per cent cited their work-from-home arrangements as a convenience to look after their children staying home from school, or even being forced to home-school them, with 44 per cent of households sharing the caring responsibilities with another family member.

“This, in turn, impacted people’s work requiring arrangements such as work from home to care for children, changing or reducing hours and/or taking leave from work,” Marquardt added.

And when it comes to employment, in addition to the work-from-home statistics, the frights just keep coming.

• Nationally, 7.3 per cent of respondents – including 15 per cent of all Victorians choosing to respond – reported being employed but working unpaid hours.
• Roughly one in six, 18 per cent, reported that they continued to work because they did not have enough paid sick leave to take two weeks off.
• And in a justification for a bipartisan call for paid pandemic leave from August, 33 per cent of the employed taking part in the survey said they had no access to paid sick leave whatsoever.

And these statistics, when taken into context as a whole array affecting everyday people, possess an alarming impact upon the entire population in times of a global pandemic plus a once-in-a-generation domestic recession.

“All Australians – whether they live below or above the poverty line – will in some form or another feel the struggle of poverty, said Andrew Leigh, the ALP’s shadow treasurer.

And while calling for a permanent increase to JobKeeper by December 31^st, Jenny McAllister, the ALP’s shadow assistant minister for families and communities, concurs with Leigh in that all of these statistics painting a picture of the pandemic’s past, present and future possess a domino effect among the sampling of the nation taking part in the ABS’s most recent work.

“When a child doesn’t have a roof over their head, or goes hungry, they cannot do their homework, complete their education and reach their potential,” said McAllister.

“They cannot participate economically or socially in our community.

“Poverty means we are all diminished as a nation,” she added.

The continued and ongoing neglect of the arts and entertainment sectors by the Morrison government since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic was highlighted by Josh Frydenberg’s reading of the 2020-21 budget on Tuesday night – and proponents of those sectors continue their cries of blue murder over the situation.

In fact, Sarah Hanson-Young, who holds the arts portfolio for the Greens, and Paul Murphy, chief executive of the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA) have individually and jointly assailed the federal treasurer in largely ignoring those sectors.

“The arts and entertainment industry was one of the first to be hit by social distancing restrictions, it has suffered enormously throughout the lockdown and will be one of the last to recover,” Hanson-Young said.

“Yet the Treasurer didn’t even utter the word ‘art’ [Tuesday] night. Clearly the $112 billion per year arts and entertainment industry does not matter to the Morrison Government,” she added.

And Murphy even feels that in addition to the arts and communications sectors being ignored in the budget, the future of public interest journalism also remains under threat by extension.

“The money that has been allocated to help the arts and entertainment sector recover from COVID-19 is inadequate and poorly targeted,” Murphy said.

“Arts and entertainment workers, already shaken by widespread ineligibility for JobKeeper payments, should be aghast that they have again been by-passed by a big-spending budget that provides no roadmap for the sector’s restoration.

“It is disappointing that the government has made no commitment tonight to support journalism by extending its Public Interest Newsgathering fund beyond the current financial year and make it a recurrent fund. At a time when journalism is under even greater pressure from reduced revenue caused by COVID, this support is sorely needed,” added Murphy.

In a budget reading which was dominated by announcements and intentions of tax cuts to benefit small- and medium-sized businesses, Hanson-Young emphasised that fiscal investment would serve as a key to help the arts and entertainment sectors to rebound.

“Tax cuts for an industry with the second highest loss of payroll jobs is completely meaningless,” said Hanson-Young.

“Investing in creative arts would create more jobs than tax cuts ever will,” added Hanson-Young, who cited a pair of examples in the National Library of Australia and the Australia Council, who will each be decimated by the government’s inattention to their cultural contributions or upcoming needs.

“The Budget paints a picture of giving millions to national cultural institutions yet in reality, funding to organisations like the National Library of Australia is cut significantly over the forward estimates,” said Hanson-Young.

“The Australia Council, which is historically underfunded, gets a token $1.4 million which will barely keep it operating, let alone hit the pockets of artists and creatives,” added Hanson-Young.

Paul Fletcher, who holds dual portfolios for the government in communications and the arts, insists that those areas are being supported, via prior announcements mentioned ahead of Tuesday night’s budgets.

Previously, Fletcher had announced:

• $33 million to Screen Australia, for the production of local content
• $5 million to the Australian Associated Press to ensure its ongoing survival
• the enhancement of free-to-air access in regional, remote and dead-spot communities, with no fixed costs mentioned
• $4.5 billion to upgrade the NBN with current technology
• and $22.9 million in support of Australia’s varied cultural institutions

However, Murphy said that the government’s levels of commitment exists as both lacking and insufficient.

“The package of measures for the screen industry announced last week and included in tonight’s Budget represent a missed opportunity to help the sector rebuild and contribute to the economic recovery,” said Murphy.

“MEAA acknowledges the additional funding for Screen Australia, but notes that this simply restores what was cut from the organisation’s budget from 2013-14.

“There is also no further clarity about how and when the $35 million set aside for federally-funded cultural organisations will be distributed through the Australia Council,” added Murphy.

Moreover, Hanson-Young, in citing that a vast majority of the nation’s workers in the arts and entertainment sectors were not included in the government’s JobKeeper subsidy upon announcement or in its expansion, stresses that the government could spark an economic renaissance if it funded these sectors properly.

“Arts and entertainment workers were largely excluded from JobKeeper and are facing $40 a day on JobSeeker,” said Hanson-Young.

“The arts and entertainment industry is vital to our economic recovery. Not only are other industries like tourism, hospitality and accommodation all going to benefit from its revival, but the sector is primed for stimulus.

“The industry can go in early and hard and put money into the pockets of workers who are in great need of an income and are going to spend what they earn,” she added.

Murphy furthermore emphasised that the lack of relief to the woes of the nation’s public broadcasters from $783 million of budget cuts since 2014 were not going by unnoticed.

“There was no extra funding in tonight’s budget for our public broadcasters, despite the extraordinary job they have done in keeping the nation informed throughout a year defined by devastating bushfires and the pandemic,” said Murphy.

“It is hard to see how the ABC can carry on without making further, damaging cuts to its workforce and the services it offers,” he added.

As a result of these cuts, and bypassing the state that the arts and entertainment sectors are in as a result of the pandemic, a potential exists for these sectors to feel the pinch for years to come.

“The Morrison Government has failed the arts and entertainment industry and now a generation of artists will be lost on their watch,” said Hanson-Young.

Michele O’Neil, the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), wasted neither time nor words of vitriol at responding to the details of the 2020-21 federal budget on Tuesday evening.

O’Neil said that – upon federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s reading of the budget plan – the Morrison government “has set itself up to fail” its test. And that test is bound to be judged as a success or failure based upon the protection of current jobs and the creation of new jobs in a rapid fashion.

And at the outset, O’Neil says that the government is failing its own statistical tests on this new budget, especially if workers across Australia do not stand to benefit from it.

“The question for the federal government is, ‘Will working Australians wake up tomorrow morning safer and more secure?’” O’Neil asked, in a rhetorical fashion.

“Unfortunately, the government has set itself to fail this test with its own numbers saying unemployment will rise to eight percent and stay at a devastating 6.5 percent until 2022, even while the economy is projected to grow.

“The government’s decision to spend is welcome but will be meaningless if money does not end up in the pockets of workers. It is working people with the confidence to spend who will restart the economy,” O’Neil added.

And after multiple attempts to offer its National Economic Reconstruction Plan (NERP) to the government to adopt as a jobs-based blueprint to kickstart the economy out of a pandemic-era recession, only a few areas were barely accepted and touched upon by Frydenberg – regarding only fringe areas surrounding infrastructure and tourism – and lacking the detail laid out in the ACTU’s NERP program.

“The programs and projects delivered must create secure jobs across the economy, and for the people hit hardest by the pandemic, to give them confidence to drive us out of recession,” O’Neil said in a general manner regarding the application of the government’s overall plan.

“There is a real missed opportunity to pick up ideas like free childcare to give women the best chance to get back to work and supporting our TAFE system which were highlighted in our National Economic Reconstruction Plan,” she added.

As per wage subsidies, O’Neil and the ACTU stress that any sort of aid for workers, the unemployed and the under-employed – whether it means further extensions for JobKeeper and JobSeeker, for example – must take a route-one approach to all people, including those in regional areas as well as in the metropolitan regions, men and women alike, and younger and older workers equally.

Quickness and fairness have to reign within the bounds of this budget’s application, if ultimately approved by the federal Parliament, say O’Neil and the ACTU.

“We do welcome a wage subsidy scheme and training and apprenticeships for young workers but the money must flow to workers, and we need safeguards to prevent businesses using government investment to increase executive pay, bonuses, or payoffs to shareholders,” said O’Neil.

O’Neil also acknowledged that small businesses needed to benefit from the proposed budget, as a means towards championing their workers, but also felt that the variety of tax cuts offered to small business would not accomplished those aims.

“We are also concerned about the tax cuts and believe that investment in services and public programs are a better long- term investment than individual tax cuts,” she said.

“A tax cut does nothing for you if you don’t have a job,” added O’Neil..

O’Neil also said that the ACTU’s lobbying and advocacy efforts are bound to hit another higher gear in order to ensure that workers’ needs are put first.

“We will continue to fight to ensure that taxpayers’ money spent in this budget accelerates the recovery and delivers more secure jobs for working people who have sacrificed so much to get the country through this crisis,” said O’Neil.

O’Neil and the ACTU are also keeping one collective eye affixed upon the outcomes from the industrial relations reform negotiations from the previous several months, those which Attorney-General Christian Porter recently said that the government is currently “synthesising views into workable products” to put before Parliament in the way of legislation.

Those talks pitting the federal government and business lobby groups against the union movement may focus on any accords that will be made which could impact workers’ cultures in the future.

But at the end of it all, O’Neil insists that workers’ rights and conditions must remain sacrosanct.

“An important measure of this budget is yet to come in the government’s approach to worker’s rights and conditions,” said O’Neil.

“The economic recovery will hinge on whether some in the business lobby get their way and we see industrial relations changes that cut workers’ pay and erode rights and conditions,” added O’Neil.

While federal communications minister Paul Fletcher has tipped his hand ahead of next week’s reading of the 2020-21 budget regarding new investments in Australian film and television productions, the Media, Arts and Entertainment Alliance (MEAA), Labor and the Greens have hit back to say that the government’s plans actually take Australian productions a few steps backward from previous years.

Fletcher unveiled his ministry’s plans on Wednesday, where he summarised the announcement of new funding and content packages as a “simplifying” of regulations that merges film and television productions under the same banner while deferring investments towards new productions overall.

“The Government is providing $30 million in funding to Screen Australia over two years to support the production of Australian drama, documentary and children’s film and television content,” Fletcher announced.

“Screen Australia will also receive an additional $3 million over three years to establish a competitive grants program to cultivate quality Australian screenwriting and script development.

“We are also providing $20 million to the Australian Children’s Television Foundation over two years to boost the development, production and distribution of high-quality Australian children’s content,” added Fletcher, as the core elements in his announcement regarding future funding of productions.

However, while the government’s new intentions under these packages possess the intent to represent more attractive content to market to overseas markets and to streaming providers such as Netflix, Stan, Disney+ and Amazon Prime, the MEAA – the union looking after the arts and entertainment sectors – fears that overall content for Australian audiences will be diluted.

Paul Murphy, the chief executive of the MEAA, has called out Fletcher and the Morrison government for not reining in the loose regulations that the streaming services now enjoy within Australia’s borders.

“How the Government has missed the boat on regulating streaming services and requiring set levels of Australian content each year defies belief. This government seems intent on deregulation rather than creating a playing field that is level for all,” said Murphy.

“Streaming services – yielding billions in income each year – will be celebrating that they have again avoided any content rules,” added Murphy.

Murphy also views Fletcher’s announcement as a bit of a trojan horse – using the buzzwords of “essential to Australia’s cultural identity” and “jobs and growth” to hide the fact that the sectors’ employees may not have enough work towards what may be feared to be a fewer allotment of overall productions.

“The new flexibility provided to Australian commercial television networks will also lead to fewer productions across the board,” Murphy said.

“Moving Foxtel and other subscription broadcast television broadcasters to five percent from ten percent of program expenditure for each drama channel just reflects a government that is not serious about the provision of quality Australian content for our growing nation,” added Murphy.

Meanwhile, a pair of key Labor shadow ministers have already pinned the potential impact of the government’s content plans as leaving Australians poorer off.

“For commercial TV, children’s content obligations are watered down. For Foxtel, content obligations have been halved. For streaming providers, there remains no obligation at all. That leaves just the ABC – which has been the target of constant Liberal cuts over the last seven years,” said Tony Burke, who looks after the ALP’s arts portfolio.

And Michelle Rowland, the ALP’s shadow communications minister, has said that Fletcher and the government have failed to meet their obligations to allow the domestic film and television industries to adapt to a changing environment.

“He has failed the creators and small businesses that comprise the screen sector. He has failed Australians who want more Australian stories,” said Rowland.

“He has even failed his own test. Fletcher has previously announced he would harmonise the regulatory framework and address the disparity in regulation between broadcasters and online streaming services. But he has failed to deliver on that,” she added.

And Sarah Hanson-Young – who holds the communications portfolio for the Greens – has called upon the streaming providers to pay fairly for the right to carry all content within Australia, while Australian content and the jobs which produce them remain under siege.

Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young (Image from abc.net.au)

And actually has the potential to carry out the reverse intention that Fletcher wishes to protect and enhance.

“The Government has failed to deliver real reform… and has let the global steaming giants off the hook. This is a decision that if not corrected, will cost local jobs and undermine Australia’s creative and cultural heritage,” Hanson-Young said.

“The Government’s reforms to local content quotas must result in more quality Australian stories on our screens, not less. This will only happen if the global streaming giants are regulated properly,” she added.

Fletcher cited that the items announced have come as a result of consultations received in the government’s “Supporting Australian Stories On Our Screens” discussion paper released as a joint endeavour between the government and Screen Australia in March, as a response to the three-part digital platform inquiry undertaken by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

“The views of stakeholders and interested parties were very clear – we need to continue our support for the production of Australian content, but we also need to remove unsustainable obligations on industry and tailor our interventions to match the new and diverse ways Australian content is being produced and consumed,” said Fletcher.

However, Hanson-Young claims that while domestic broadcasters are still required to provide 55 percent overall Australian content on their primary channels between 6:00am and midnight, and to provide 1,460 hours of Australian content per year on their multi-channels, Australian audiences – including that for children’s programming – may suffer from an overall lack of quality.

“Without legal requirements on the global giants, our screens and children’s devices will become even more clogged with trashy, cheap shows from America. Our Aussie kids deserve better than this,” Hanson-Young said.

“The Greens will fight for local content requirements on streaming services to be legislated.

“Research shows two thirds of Australians support laws requiring streaming services like Netflix and Amazon to show and fund locally-made shows and films – this was a no-brainer and the Morrison Government has missed it,” added Hanson-Young.

“This Government talks a big game about levelling the playing field with the so-called ‘digital giants’, but it has baulked at actually doing so,” concurs Rowland.

Two days after assailing the Morrison government for inaction on a jobs plan amid ushering in the cuts to the JobSeeker and JobKeeper subsidies, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has called for a reversal and expansion of JobKeeper.

Citing the 3.5 million workers receiving JobKeeper, Michele O’Neil, president of the ACTU, views the subsidy as an essential form of support for more than one-third of the pre-COVID workforce, as their pre-tax payments were cut from $1500 for all recipients to $1200 for full-time workers and $750 for part-time workers, over the course of each fortnight.

“JobKeeper is an essential support during this crisis for millions of workers and their families. Any cut will mean more hardship for working people during the ongoing health and economic crisis,” O’Neil said on Sunday, further citing the ongoing duality of a once-in-a-generation economic domestic recession occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These cuts will hit the most vulnerable workers the hardest,” added O’Neil.

While Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the legislative changes to cut JobKeeper as his government’s own “extending and transitioning” on the subsidy’s scheme, the ACTU has also pointed out that the JobKeeper subsidy exists as a vital element for the Australian economy.

And the subsidy further serves as an even more essential economic player without a jobs plan that the unions’ national governing body keeps offering to the Morrison government, and that small business relies on the subsidy in the same spirit as workers do.

“We also know that these cuts will hurt small business and the economy because it is critical to the recovery from this recession that money is put in the hands of working people to spend,” said O’Neil.

Moreover, Brendan O’Connor, Labor’s shadow minister for employment and industry, concurs with the ACTU that the Morrison government could be doing more to prop up the economy and helping small business.

In addition to going ahead with Friday’s JobKeeper and JobSeeker cuts, the government’s plans to bring in changes to bankruptcy processes with the initial six-month interval of temporary debt protection ending occurred on Friday as well.

“Changes to bankruptcy processes are complex and require extensive consultation, so it is concerning that industry leaders have already declared the Morrison government’s consultation inadequate,” O’Connor said on Friday.

“Scott Morrison has still not done enough to support small businesses which are struggling in the worst recession in a generation, risking more jobs losses and business closures,” O’Connor added.

While still awaiting confirmation from the Morrison government on any adoption of its NERP jobs-based economic recovery blueprint that may not come until federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg reads out the budget on Tuesday week, O’Neil emphasises that reversing the cuts will help to support vulnerable workers.

“The Government needs to maintain and extend JobKeeper and JobSeeker to make sure that working people and those who have lost jobs are supported through this crisis,” she said.

And in addition to the ACTU’s pleas on JobKeeper and JobSeeker, O’Connor also points out that the government has shown overwhelming shortcomings in its promised achievements for the Coronavirus Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Guarantee Scheme which was created in late March when the pandemic broke with the intent to assist smaller- and medium-sized businesses with lines of credit to get through the pandemic.

“The Liberals have a poor record of delivering small business support, with only $1.8 billion of its $40 billion SME loan guarantee out the door, and repeated failures to fix payment times for SME’s,” O’Connor stated.

“Labor will wait to see the details of this proposal and consult with industry and other stakeholders,” O’Connor added.

O’Neil – in recognising the three-month prelude to the Christmas holidays that would justifiably provide a considerable year-end morale boost to those that have endured all of 2020’s slings and arrows – has also renewed the call for the Morrison government to commit to a comprehensive expansion of the JobKeeper program, in addition to advocating for a reversal of its cuts.

“These cuts come in the lead-up to Christmas at the end of an incredibly hard year and will be a huge blow to millions of families – they should be reversed and the program should be expanded to cover casuals, visa workers and industries like arts and higher education which the Government arbitrarily excluded,” said O’Neil.

Meanwhile, O’Connor insists that while being in opposition, a spirit of bipartisanship of working with the Morrison government on all economic matters is what Labor would prefer to do, but it has its limits on the JobKeeper and JobSeeker subsidies and beyond.

“We will continue to be constructive, supportive and responsible but that does not mean remaining silent when there are clear gaps that need to be filled,” said O’Connor.

“Australians deserve a plan from the Morrison Government to promote growth, protect and create jobs, support small businesses and set us all up for the recovery,” he added.

On the day where the Morrison government’s announced cuts to the JobKeeper and JobSeeker subsidies take effect, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) have taken another opportunity to push its jobs-based plan for economic recovery – with the reading of the federal budget now just ten days away.

Michele O’Neil, the president of the ACTU, points out that from early May when the first JobKeeper and JobSeeker payments went out to its recipients until Friday, when the cuts took place, it allowed an all-too-brief glimpse of relief out of poverty for more than a million people on JobSeeker alone.

In essence, those on JobSeeker will lose more than half of their supplement added to the old NewStart allowance, roughly $300 per fortnight to $250 received per fortnight, while approximately 3.5 million JobKeeper recipients will be losing either $300 per fortnight or up to $750 per fortnight, depending on whether any given employee meets the threshold of working 80 hours per fortnight.

Therefore, while those on JobKeeper will still receive $1200 per fortnight at Tier 1 and up to $750 per fortnight at Tier 2, each before tax, JobSeeker recipients have had their payments cut from approximately $1130 per fortnight to $830 per fortnight, tax-free.

Whereas JobSeeker recipients had become accustomed to receiving an average of $80 per day with the full supplementary payments, twice the amount of the old NewStart allowance alone, they are now having to get by on an average of $58 per day.

“This crisis has shown how much a small increase in JobSeeker payments can improve quality of life for working people and their families, but the Morrison Government seems determined that its legacy should be poverty for those who have lost their jobs during the greatest economic downturn in a century,” said Michele O’Neil, the ACTU’s president.

And while hope is currently leading to another round of gloom and despair, the projected statistical impact of JobSeeker cuts may equate to the worst being yet to come.

According to global financial advisory firm Deloitte, the warning over the JobSeeker supplement cuts could cost the Australian economy $31.3 billion and up to 145,000 jobs over a two-year span.

Image from getup.org.au

And with JobSeeker set for another rollback to its original NewStart allowance values as of December 31, pending further negotiations and changes in the government’s policies, the losses could mount even higher.

While unemployment figures cited by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) dropping by 0.7 per cent in the month of August, from 7.5 to 6.8 per cent, the under-employment rate – defined as those casual and part-time workers employed for 20 hours per week or less – remained at 11.2 per cent.

Despite apparent gains on the unemployment front, according to deputy opposition leader Richard Marles, the ALP member for Corio in Geelong’s northern suburbs, finding a job is more challenging than ever for the unemployed and under-employed.

“In Australia right now, there are 13 people unemployed for every job that is available,” Marles told the Today show last week.

“In regional Australia – and here in Geelong – that’s much worse, it is 23 people to every job that’s available,” Marles added.

The ACTU has advocated for the Morrison government to adopt its jobs-based plan to stimulate economic growth out of the double-whammy of the COVID-19 pandemic and a once-in-a-generation recession on multiple occasions, and while the government has steadfastly refused to take the ACTU up on its generous offer, perhaps there is no time like the present to swallow its pride on behalf of a whole nation.

In July, the ACTU released its blueprint for that, entitled the National Economic Reconstruction Plan (NERP), which focused on five key areas:

• Early Childhood Education
• Training For Reconstruction
• Rediscover Australia
• National Reconstruction Investment Plan
• and a Sustainable Marketing Strategy

Recently, the ACTU’s push for its NERP plan has been justified even further due to the influx of new statistics and developments.

Tourism, an industry covered under the “Rediscover Australia” element, has taken a major hit so far during the pandemic, given the locking-down of state borders and the lack of international tourists that have been able to fly into Australia since the pandemic was called by the Morrison government in March.

The ABS revealed on Friday that for the financial year ending last June, employment within the tourism industry fell by a whopping 15.1 per cent, and the retail sector of the hospitality industry – defined in the report to single out cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services – suffered a loss of just over 34,000 jobs while the accommodation sector decreased by 24,000 jobs.

“However, all areas of tourism have been impacted,” said Jonathan Khoo, the ABS’s director of tourism statistics, emphasising that the total fall of tourism jobs exists as the lowest on record.

“Given the challenges that tourism continues to face, we expect future releases of this data will show further impacts of COVID-19 on tourism activity,” added Khoo.

Additionally, the ACTU also advocates for the reinvestment in training institutes, such as with the TAFE system which had been gutted with budget cuts dating back to Tony Abbott’s government, as a staple of its NERP blueprint.

“To lift the country out of recession, we need to create secure jobs and make sure there are pathways for local workers into those jobs,” said Scott Connolly, the ACTU’s assistant secretary.

Moreover, O’Neil cites that the Morrison government has its priorities misplaced, cutting subsidies for people who need it most rather than focusing on a jobs-based plan that can bolster the economy.

“Despite not having a plan for how to get people back into jobs, the Morrison Government is now cutting support for the people in our community who have been hit hardest by this pandemic,” said O’Neil.

With less than a week to go in the scheduled agenda for the industrial relations reforms negotiations which have been ongoing since early June, Sally McManus – national secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) – has voiced her displeasure over an apparent breakdown in the talks which have been primarily featuring union groups and the business lobby in their viewpoints.

And moreover, that breakdown concerns the unwritten yet agreed-to policy of confidentiality between all five working groups which has existed since the talks began.

Reports emerging from the bilateral talks in Sydney and Canberra have revealed that a series of employer groups would collectively appeal to federal Attorney-General Christian Porter – who also doubles in the Morrison government as its industrial relations minister – after it has come to light that the unions and business lobbies have reached deals on the prioritising of union agreements in Australia’s workplace system.

And in claiming that such deals would be discriminatory to non-union workers, infringes on freedom of association and creates pressure on employers to lean towards union-affiliated workers in the collective bargaining process, the Master Builders Association (MBA) led the charge followed by the Australian Industry Group (AIG), the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) and the Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) to come forward and publicly reject the pact reached between the Business Council of Australia (BCA) and the ACTU, and thus appeal to Porter’s moderation of the talks.

Porter has stressed since the opening of the negotiations that a confidentiality agreement between all negotiating parties was deemed essential to reaching agreements that would be fair, balanced and bipartisan in nature.

And as the group of four have come forward to unleash their collective displeasure, that confidentiality has been breached, thereby threatening the integrity of the talks and reaching the aimed outcomes, McManus claims.

“We remain hopeful that an agreement can be reached which will benefit working people and the national interest,” McManus said in a statement released by the ACTU on Thursday.

“However, it has become obvious that a number of employer lobby groups no longer wish to respect the confidentiality agreement or engage with this process in good faith.

“It is apparent that some entered this process not wanting to reach common ground and advance the national interest, but simply to use the opportunity to undermine working people’s rights at a time of unprecedented national crisis,” added McManus.

In July, the industrial relations negotiations process was momentarily derailed when it became public knowledge that professional services firm KPMG revealed details of the ongoing negotiations in a document to its staff.

As a result, KPMG were immediately ejected from the talks, only as far as having their invitations to speak and be involved in a couple of key discussion sessions retracted from them.

And as the recent moves of the MBA, AIG, ACCI and AMMA to band together in threatening the process of reaching some accords, the ACTU stands by its agreement to keep details secret until a certain point in time.

“The union movement is committed to ongoing discussions on behalf of working people, and reiterate our position that the national interest will be served by ensuring workers have decent rights and secure jobs in a growing economy,” McManus said.

“We continue to believe that agreements can be reached that benefit working people as well as business, and urge the various employer groupings to put the national interest first,” she added.

The optimism from the ACTU comes as the deadline of the talks approaches – and with that, Porter may exercise the powers in the talks extended to him by the Morrison government to put forth its own legislation should all sides be unable to reach common agreements on any sets of reforms.

“[The] process is winding up, as it was all going to at this time, and then we, the Government, will take away and consider where there has been agreement, where there hasn’t been agreement, where there’s been disagreement inside the business and employer community which has arisen on some issues, and we’ll try and kind of synthesise all of that into a product in each of the five streams,” Porter told 6PR’s Gareth Parker on Wednesday.

However, Porter remains optimistic at this stage, with one more scheduled week to go, that he and the government won’t have to cherry-pick elements among the groups’ discussions to create its own tapestry resembling a patchwork quilt of industrial relations reforms.

“Well, there’s a lot of agreement around the problems. There’s imperfect agreement around solutions,” Porter said about a number of the various issues.

Yet they may be prepared to go down the route of making its own consensus.

“We’ve now exhaustively heard all of those and our job is to work out what type of solution you’d put in place in that situation that is mutually beneficial for the employer and for the employee and fixes the problem. I think there’s ways and parts through that,” Porter said.

Meanwhile, Porter has downplayed any leaks that may have occurred in the last four months of negotiations on industrial relations reforms.

“[Over] literally hundreds and hundreds of hours of meetings, the discipline and rigour that the process was engaged in is actually quite remarkable,” said Porter.

“There are a few people who had complained publicly towards the end about a particular issue, but I mean, I was quite amazed at the level of good faith, the discipline, the abiding by the rule of keeping matters discussed in the room in the room. As these things go, it was a very, I think, healthy, useful exercise,” he added.

Last month, former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott – in what can be best described as a sly move on the international front politically, even to the most astute of observers – cut a deal with the government of the United Kingdom to become its new international trade advisor.

And while the move drew the ire and concerns among those considering his appointment from 10 Downing Street and approving it in the British Parliament, and wondering whose government he’s really serving in the grand scheme of things, the union movement has given its concerns over Abbott’s potential conflict of interest in the role.

And it isn’t just the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) which has red-flagged these issues, as trade talks between the Morrison government and Boris Johnson’s government in the U.K. got underway this week.

The ACTU’s equal bodies in New Zealand and the U.K. – represented by the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU) and the Trades Union Council (TUC), respectively – are also critical that with Abbott’s past history in leading the LNP government from 2013-15, many deals may be made in secret, as well as the potential of not knowing who consistently stands to benefit from them.

In a joint statement released by the trio of national union bodies, they call for their respective governments to consult their trade unions on the text of trade negotiations, conducting independent assessments of the impact on local workers, and putting the needs and concerns of those workers first.

“Negotiations must be transparent, with proposals and draft texts released publicly for consultation before a deal is reached,” said the statement.

And as Australians are aware of, transparency was hardly ever a staple of the Abbott government.

Locally, the ACTU cites the patterns of what happened with trade deals under Abbott’s watch during his time as Prime Minister – a period of time most significantly noted by the inking of free trade agreements with Japan, South Korea and China, deals that arguably didn’t favour Australia’s best interests for its own workers – could be repeated while he is working under a foreign government.

“We need to end the system which allows Governments to negotiate trade deals in secret and make sure that all deals put working people first,” said Michele O’Neil, the ACTU’s president.

O’Neil also summarised that the ACTU, NZCTU and the TUC are all jointly interested in protecting local workers’ rights, local industries and public services all in the name of national sovereignty and identity.

And Abbott’s past reputation of being an anti-worker bureaucrat could stand in the way of all of that.

“An anti-worker trade deal will limit the ability of the Australian government to respond to the ongoing pandemic and economic crisis. We need strong government investment in reconstruction and local jobs and to strengthen the rights of all working people,” said O’Neil.

And amid the current round of negotiations between Australia and Great Britain, there stands good reason for the reunited strange bedfellows of Abbott dealing with the Morrison government, according to the ACTU, for the following anti-worker characteristics:

If the ACTU possesses these fears for Australian-based workers about their jobs, wages and conditions, imagine the mindset of what the NZCTU and the TUC would have for theirs.

Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of the TUC, uses an example of any U.K. pact made with the European Union, and what impact any Abbott-influenced negotiations may have on agreements with other nations.

“Good trade deals improve the lives of working people. They protect jobs, create new employment and raise global labour standards,” said O’Grady.

“Strong workers’ rights must be a common thread linking all the trade deals our nations make. The deal Britain makes with the EU has consequences for Australia and New Zealand, too. If it does not lock in high standards of workers’ rights, then the rights of their workers will come under pressure,” she added.

Richard Wagstaff, the president of the NZCTU, also stresses the importance of remembering any deals, cut by Abbott or any of his colleagues in the U.K., cannot forget the context of making economies recover from any effects surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, as long as the workers’ needs are put first.

“It is vital that all our international relationships reflect the reality that Covid-19 and the global financial crisis have graphically demonstrated,” said Wagstaff.

“These events have showed the importance of strong public services, of our health system, our need for greater self-reliance in medical supplies and other important goods and services, and the importance of preventing abuse of working people’s labour rights.

“It’s vital this agreement protects and strengthens our public services and state-owned enterprises, enables us to develop our own industries, and has enforceable labour rights provisions,” added Wagstaff.

And for all of these groups, the outcome of any agreement brokered comes down to transparency and ensuring that the workers’ rights are put first and foremost, as O’Neil points out.

“The COVID-19 crisis has shown the importance of strong Government support for local workers, and a robust and comprehensive set of rights for working people. Instead, this agreement has the potential to weaken the ability of our government to protect working people and expose workers to exploitation,” said O’Neil.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and leaders from three of its affiliated unions banded together on Monday to call for a reform package for the beleaguered aged care sector to be adopted, ratified and legislated in favour of, to the Morrison government for anytime in the near future.

The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), Health Services Union (HSU), and the United Workers Union (UWU), each of whom have contacts and vested interests within the aged care sector, all spoke out to respond to the public’s outcries for reform within the sector under the greater medical community.

“We need a renewed commitment to our older Australians,” said a policy document jointly put together by the three unions and the ACTU.

ACTU President Michele O’Neil, in saying that the system was broken and in dire need of reform, pinpointed the heart of the problems being laid not just at the privatisation of the sector under the John Howard-led LNP government’s decisions, but at the decay that it has caused, and the casualisation of the sector which has resulted from it.

“In order to create a system which gives older Australians quality care, respect and dignity we need to protect the rights of the working people who care for them,” O’Neil said.

“Minimum staffing levels and a regulated mix of skills on every shift in every facility is essential for improving the quality of care delivered to older Australians.

“The pandemic has shown us that insecure and undervalued work leaves workers unable to provide the quality of care that older Australians should be able to expect,” added O’Neil.

The policy document summarised the essential changes that the unions are looking for accordingly:

• Mandated minimum staffing levels and required mix of skills and qualifications in every residential facility, over every shift
• Transparency and accountability for Morrison government funding
• Mandated training requirements (including infection control and ongoing professional development) accessible to all staff and paid by employer
• Government funding is required to be increased, linked to the provision of care and the direct employment of permanent staff with decent pay and enough hours to live on.

The unions have also been quite critical of the Aged Care Royal Commission, whose findings and conclusions are only half-finished. However, the ones that have been made public as of October 2019 have not been implemented.

“The neglect that we have found in this Royal Commission, to date, is far from the best that can be done. Rather, it is a sad and shocking system that diminishes Australia as a nation,” concluded the work of Richard Tracey and Lynelle Briggs, co-commissioners into the Royal Commission on Aged Care.

And nearly 12 months and one COVID-19 pandemic later, it continues to be run that way, according to the ANMF, who mince no words in calling it out for the fiasco which they observe.

“Long before the COVID-19 pandemic began, and as exposed by the Aged Care Royal Commission, chronic and widespread understaffing across the aged care system had created unsafe environments for both workers and those they cared for. The pandemic has now revealed just how dangerous understaffing is, with tragic consequences for far too many older Australians and their families,” said Annie Butler, the federal secretary of the ANMF.

“Now, more than ever before, the pandemic and its devastating effects in aged care, have demonstrated that mandating minimum staffing levels must be an urgent priority, as part of any lasting reforms of the sector. If that doesn’t happen, safe, quality care cannot be guaranteed and the pain and suffering of elderly Australians will go on.

“It’s time to make changes and prevent further suffering and neglect,” Butler added.

And for that to happen, and to attract a better quality of workers into the aged care sector, proper funding is required, according to Gerard Hayes, the president of the HSU.

“A properly and transparently funded aged care sector will lead to better pay and conditions for all aged care workers – only this will ensure the high-quality care that all older Australians deserve,” said Hayes.

“This is an aged care crisis that the Federal Government talks about but doesn’t take action on.

“It’s time to get this right for older Australians, their loved ones, and the workers,” Hayes added.

And yet, greater intangible effects beyond dollars and wages have come into play as a result of what’s been exploited during the pandemic.

As it currently stands, low staffing numbers have caused situations where workers are having to choose between critical tasks, leading to the lowering of self-esteem and morale levels of its workforce, alleges Carolyn Smith, the director for aged care within the UWU.

“Our members tell us every day they are forced to make the choice between completing their tasks or properly looking after those they care for,” said Smith.

“They tell us the system is so broken and so understaffed their timetables don’t allow them the simple humanity of pausing to have a chat with people as they prepare their shower.

“The pressures on aged care staff leaves our members demoralised and burnt out, and helps explain why Australia has one of the world’s worst staff retention rates in aged care,” Smith added.

Moreover, O’Neil and the ACTU have called for, in addition to their reform dot-points and explanations around them, an end to the casualisation and privatisation within the aged care sector.

And all in the name of putting older peoples’ health and well-being ahead of profits.

“We need to ensure that one job is enough for any worker in aged care. Aged care workers having to work between multiple facilities has been a huge problem during the pandemic and must end,” said O’Neil.

“Privatisation is a failed experiment in aged care and has failed working people and the people they care for,” she added.

‘Well done for the Morrison government in giving a $5 million grant to the Australian Associated Press (AAP), but what about the ABC?’ – such was the refrain from Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young on Friday, after federal communications minister Paul Fletcher announced a cash injection for the national newswire.

The AAP, whose future was secured only in June after an eleventh-hour philanthropic move to keep it out of the clutches of mainstream media organisations News Corp and Nine/Fairfax, is now the latest of 93 recipients of government grants that Fletcher’s office has awarded under its Public Interest News Gathering (PING) program since it was announced last May, and would be receiving the funding within the next few weeks, Fletcher said.

However, while Hanson-Young – who holds the portfolio of communications for the Greens – congratulated the AAP for receiving the grant as advocating for the newswire’s support earlier in the week, she also put a degree of focus on restoring funding for public broadcasters ABC and SBS.

“Earlier this week, I called on the Government to ensure the survival of [the] AAP as they consider options for protecting public interest journalism through the ACCC News Media Code. I am glad that after months of uncertainty, the Government has finally come to the table with the support [the] AAP needs,” Hanson-Young said.

Hanson-Young, the Greens’ senator from South Australia who has served her constituents in federal Parliament since 2008, wants to see at least a portion restored of the $783 million in cuts which has occurred under consecutive LNP governments since 2014.

We will fight any more moves from this Government to cut ABC funding in next months Budget.
Enough is enough. https://t.co/TZwXgK1q0b

— 💚🌏 Sarah Hanson-Young (@sarahinthesen8) September 17, 2020

In fact, projections have the current government’s cuts to the ABC could balloon out to as much as $1 billion by the time of the next federal election takes place in 2022 if no action is taken, action which Hanson-Young is pushing for.

Image from mumbrella.com.au

“Another essential component of the Australian news industry is the ABC. To protect public interest journalism in Australia, I call on the Government to stop their relentless attacks on our national broadcaster and include the ABC and SBS in the upcoming legislation for the ACCC News Media Code,” said Hanson-Young.

And while the reading of the federal budget that takes place in a few weeks’ time could have an impact on potential further cuts to the ABC and SBS, Fletcher defended the grant to the AAP as an element within enhancing public interest journalism under the PING program.

“Public interest journalism is important now, more than ever. This $5 million in funding will allow [the] AAP to continue delivering its important news service for communities Australia-wide,” Fletcher said.

“It will also provide the Newswire more opportunities to secure additional private investment to support its long-term sustainability,” he added.

But Hanson-Young would prefer to see the government maintain such actions of support, rather than executing a one-off funding for the AAP newswire, in addition to considering restoring funding to the nation’s public broadcasters.

“While today’s announcement has secured AAP’s short-term future and will assist [the] AAP’s transition to its new not-for-profit model, the newswire service may require the further government support in the future,” said Hanson-Young.

“I urge the Government to consider recurrent funding to ensure the viability of the AAP so it can continue to play an essential role in ensuring that Australia has a strong and diverse public interest journalism industry,” she added.

Moreover, Labor’s shadow communications minister Michelle Rowland also assailed Fletcher’s inaction to give financial support to the AAP, given that the newswire had originally announced its winding-up plans in March.

“Federal funding to support [the] AAP is a no-brainer and should have been done months ago. Why has it taken this [government] months to support this vital news service? Why is it so hard for this [government] to do the right thing at the right time?” Rowland tweeted on Friday afternoon.

However, Fletcher and Hanson-Young do agree that any financial aid to the AAP allows them to focus on providing news and information to local and regional communities.

“Importantly, [the] AAP also provides regional stories for national distribution so that regional issues and voices are heard across the country,” said Fletcher.

“The current pandemic has shown us how important it is to have local and regional news. AAP is an essential part of making sure that all Australian communities have access to local news,” said Hanson-Young.

Hanson-Young also said that the AAP newswire possesses a great value to all forms of media, and not just local and regional newspapers and the mastheads which Fletcher singles out.

“[The] AAP is key media infrastructure that helps new players into the market and diversity across Australia’s media landscape. Allowing [the] AAP to collapse would entrench the power of big media companies, NewsCorp and Nine and lock out smaller and new players in the industry,” she said.

Unemployment figures for the month of August may look good on the surface, but when the impending cuts to JobKeeper and JobSeeker hit at the end of September, that will present a perilous impact to the Australian economy that may very well nullify any small inroads to recovery, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) said on Thursday.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the nation’s unemployment rate dipped 0.7 per cent over the last month, from 7.5 to 6.8 per cent – however, the under-employment rate remained virtually the same with 1.5 million workers classified as casuals or part-time workers working less than 20 hours per week, and 3.5 million workers still reliant on the JobKeeper subsidy.

And as the Morrison government’s treasurer Josh Frydenberg even confesses that the “real” rate of unemployment exists between 13 or 14 per cent, Michele O’Neil, the ACTU president, maintains that it is a dire error of judgement for Frydenberg, Morrison, and other federal cabinet members to agree to make cuts to JobKeeper and JobSeeker at this juncture of the nation’s pandemic response and in the middle of its economic recession as well.

“Working people need the Morrison Government to continue the stimulus, and provide certainty about what comes next,” O’Neil said on Thursday upon the release of the updated unemployment figures.

“We are still in the middle of this crisis and the Morrison Government is already trying to cut vital supports for working people and the unemployed. If you don’t protect working people they cannot protect the economy,” O’Neil added.

The ACTU further cites findings from the McKell Institute, a progressive institution for research dedicated towards providing innovative solutions for public policy challenges, that forecasts with $300 per fortnight being slashed from any single worker’s JobKeeper subsidy as of September 28^th, the damage to the Australian economy could run as high as $760 million per week, or $1.52 billion.

“JobKeeper cannot continue forever. Beyond its expense, it also injects genuine distortions into the labour market, dissuading labour mobility and enabling potentially unviable enterprises to continue,” concluded Edward Cavanough, the director of policy at the McKell Institute, in the institute’s research paper “Crossing The Fiscal Cliff”, a text which delves deeper into the impact of the impending JobKeeper cuts.

“In good economic times, these distortions would ensure the program would never be enacted – but these are not good economic times.

“Unfortunately, the significance of the COVID-19 recession is such that any premature withdrawal of fiscal support is likely to further delay the road to recovery for the Australian economy,” added Cavanough.

From a state-by-state analysis via the ABS, unemployment figures dipped in every Australian state and territory bar Victoria – where Stage 4 restrictions in Melbourne and Stage 3 restrictions in the state’s regional areas were cited as causes for higher unemployment – and New South Wales.

Cavanough and the McKell Institute concur, further forecasting that based on the JobKeeper cuts to over a million employees receiving the subsidy, the Victorian economy stands to be hit to the rate of over $440 million alone by virtue of those receiving the payments once the cuts take effect.

In New South Wales and the ACT, where over 1.3 million workers are receiving JobKeeper, its recipients will be over $580 million worse off collectively.

“Vulnerable workers, already struggling through this pandemic, should not have to take a massive hit to their take-home pay,” Tony Burke, the shadow minister for industrial relations and manager of opposition business, said at the end of August when Labor was attempting to fight the government’s JobKeeper and JobSeeker cuts with legislative action which ultimately failed.

“Low paid workers deserve better than to have their wages cut at a time that business is recovering,” Burke added.

Another Labor frontbencher, Brendan O’Connor, the shadow minister for employment, puts a different perspective on the current unemployment numbers.

Instead of looking at them on a month-to-month basis like the Morrison government and the ABS have done, O’Connor sums up the numbers as what has happened as of March, when the COVID-19 pandemic

In that time, over 400,000 jobs have been lost, contributing to the current status of 923,000 persons in Australia out of work.

And O’Connor says that the government has failed in its duties to stimulate growth in the economy by tackling the unemployment crisis to a greater extent than what has been exhibited so far.

“Instead of a jobs plan, Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg want to wind back JobKeeper, cut super, cut wages, freeze the pension, point the finger and shift the blame,” O’Connor said on Thursday.

“Australians need and deserve a plan from the Morrison Government to promote growth, protect and create jobs, support business and set us all up for the recovery,” added O’Connor.

The ACTU has – on numerous occasions – offered a jobs-based plan to the government via its National Economic Reconstruction Plan (NERP) blueprint to stimulate the economy, but has been knocked back at every hurdle.

But from its advocacy position, the ACTU persists to offer the NERP up to the government, even for consideration of inclusion in the Federal Budget in a few weeks’ time, strong in its collective convictions that it represents the best foot forward.

“We cannot slump back into the same spiral of insecure work and low wage growth. This recovery is an opportunity to improve the quality and security of jobs,” O’Neil said.

In an observation viewed as another episode of neglect towards Australia’s public broadcasters, the Morrison government should include public broadcasters such as the ABC and SBS in their negotiations around shaping new media codes while they seek pay-for-use solutions with digital technology giants Facebook and Google, according to the Greens.

Sarah Hanson-Young, the Greens’ senator from South Australia who holds the party’s communications portfolio, feels that the government’s schemes for a communications update within a Mandatory Code legislation policy with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) would be incomplete without including the nation’s public broadcasters in the codes or even in the conversations.

“The power and greed of the tech giants is threatening journalism and public access to news. The government’s mandatory ACCC code could be part of the solution but the draft needs fixing and additional measures brought to the table,” Hanson-Young said on Monday.

The government’s plans to alter the media codes – as viewed by its intentional directive as a further attack on the ABC and SBS – has come on the heels of years of decay to the public broadcasters, despite the consistent high level of trust the public possesses in the ABC, and all the service that both the ABC and SBS have given over the years to regional and ethnic communities as well as in times of emergencies, such as with the bushfire crises and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 alone.

And many would claim that the decay has been intentional on the part of consecutive LNP governments.

Such as:

• several rounds of cuts to ABC and SBS funding since 2014, totalling $783.3 million to date since then
• shedding 250 jobs from the ABC in its latest round of layoffs, with Emma Alberici’s respected role as lead economics reporter being the highest-profile redundancy
• a perceived swing to the right in ABC editorial policy in recent years, as evidenced on flagship panel shows such as Insiders, Q&A, 730, and The Drum versus years of perceived left-wing bias on the national public broadcaster
• appointments of cabinet communications ministers in Mitch Fifield and Paul Fletcher whose conflict-of-interest memberships in the extreme right-wing thinktank of the IPA would suggest that they don’t have the public broadcasters’ best public interests at heart
• appointments of Murdoch-friendly personnel such as Michelle Guthrie and Ita Buttrose in recent years to the role of the ABC’s managing director
• And speaking of Buttrose, her edict last week to ABC staff to agree to a wage freeze vote in order to fill budgetary gaps on an emergency broadcast funding shortfall of $5 million

And the consequence of these actions has affected not just editorial policy which is deemed as friendly treatment of LNP governments, but something which has diluted the ABC’s reputation for delivering unflinching, no-fear-nor-favour independent public affairs journalism, and damage to its Charter as well.

Moreover, Hanson-Young claims that while the government is seeking for Facebook and Google to pay the nation’s media giants fees to run their content – which has been tried and failed in Spain, France and Germany – they also need to ensure that the reform of any media codes must protect the public broadcasters and enhance freedoms for public interest journalism, its reporters, sources and whistleblowers.

“The ABC is Australia’s most trusted news source and should be included in any reform to tackle the greed of the big tech giants,” she said.

“It was a deliberate decision to lock the public broadcasters out of the draft code, allowing Facebook and Google to profit from their content for free – the Government should reverse this and drop their relentless attack on the ABC,” Hanson-Young added.

And while the ACCC’s notice of reforms remains in its draft stage, it also says that in addition to Facebook and Google, other digital platforms may be added in the future if they pose a threat to Australia’s media giants such as News Corp and Nine/Fairfax.

The considerations of the future of public interest journalism and protections for the ABC and SBS should also stand at the forefront of any reforms, Hanson-Young says.

“Australia’s media landscape is facing unprecedented challenges. Public interest journalism, reliable local news and trustworthy and informed analysis is essential for a robust and accountable democracy. The power imbalance between the big tech giants and Australian news organisations is unsustainable,” said Hanson-Young.

“It is therefore important that key parts of Australia’s media landscape are protected as part of this process. There is no reason for the ABC and SBS to be excluded from the code. Public broadcasters deserve a fair return for what they produce and what the tech platforms benefit from,” she added.

And as the AAP newswire service recently received a reprieve to allow it to continue operating – whereas the alternative had reportedly been for News Corp and Nine/Fairfax to create newswires of their own, and charging higher fees for its services – Hanson-Young maintains that the independence of the AAP also needs to be supported within the reformed code, for all media players large and small.

“It would be unconscionable for the Government not to find a way of supporting AAP while introducing a code that supports other media players. AAP is key media infrastructure that helps new players into the market and diversity across Australia’s media landscape,” she said.

Hanson-Young also stated that through an updated ACCC draft of the media codes, cost-effective benefits via the application of collective bargaining would have to suit small and independent media publishers as well as the likes of News Corp and Nine/Fairfax who are waging battles against Facebook and Google.

“If the aim of this code is to ensure the viability of Australia’s media, then the Government should ensure ABC is included, that AAP doesn’t fail and that small and independent publishers don’t miss out,” Hanson-Young said.