E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS RADIO
WEDNESDAY, 9 DECEMBER 2020

SUBJECTS: Morrison Government’s plan for Robodebt 2.0; industrial relations bill.

GLENN BARTHOLOMEW, HOST: Well, there are concerns the Federal Government may have failed to learn from the mistakes made during its botched Robodebt system, as Centrelink is asking new debt collectors to meet rigorous financial targets in order to secure more work. Tender documents show the new collection agencies will compete with each other to recover more money from customers and will lose work if they fail to meet the targets. It does come after the Federal Government was forced to pay a 1.2-billion-dollar settlement over its unlawful Robodebt recovery program. Labor MP Bill Shorten is the Shadow Minister for Government Services and he joins us now, good morning.

BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: Good morning. How's it going?

BARTHOLOMEW: Not bad. What do you make of these targets and the other requirements for debt collectors?

SHORTEN: I think that the Federal Government hasn't learnt a thing from the Robodebt scandal. What we need is a Centrelink system, and I have a lot of respect for the frontline staff there, which is crisis capable. One which treats people who come through the door or online as first-class citizens, not as people to be suspicious of. Instead, what the Government's doing is setting up another million debt letters to go out from February the 1st next year and that they're going to hire labour hire companies who, it seems to me their key metric for success will be how many debts they can issue and not focus on the quality of checking the facts are right.

BARTHOLOMEW: Some might say that most lenders work in a way in this way of trying to find the most efficient business, if you like. Why should these services work differently?

SHORTEN: I don't think that Centrelink is just about delivering a second class, lowest cost service. We have a safety net in Australia, which means that people who are down on their luck or unable to find work or need modest government support are not treated as second class citizens. I think what they should do is bring more jobs in-house, train up and respect the public servants and the Commonwealth offices they have. I think that when someone comes to Centrelink for help, we shouldn't treat them as a nuisance and a burden but rather someone who's deserving of a crisis capable support system to get them back on their feet.

BARTHOLOMEW: So, you want Centrelink to be handling the debt recovery in-house rather than rely on the private sector? How likely is that, though? Surely if it was ever going to happen, it might have happened now after the Robodebt scandal?

SHORTEN: Well you'd have thought so. The problem is that whilst the Government's paid a historic 1.2 billion dollars to 400,000 plus people, they haven't admitted liability, although they are actually paying 1.2 billion dollars, so it seems to be a pretty pointless distinction run by the Government. No, what we need is to treat people as people, not as people in the digital workhouse where they're just treated as people who are ripping the system off and the onus of proof goes back onto Centrelink recipients rather than the government trying to actually make the case and work harder to have an effective system.

BARTHOLOMEW: You’re concerned, what, that setting these financial targets, like the ones here, might have a similar result or outcome to the Robodebt scheme?

SHORTEN: Yes, I am. I mean, let's put it bluntly. When you have a private operator, the private operator is serving two masters. They want to make a profit and they want to deliver a service for the Government. But the people who require Centrelink, they just need a government crisis capable service, which looks after them. But if your service provider and the people working in the call centres have got to try and hit targets every day and make a profit for the large private multinationals who get these contracts, as well as look after people, something's got to give and all too often it's the person at the end of the phone who pays the price. And I know, I've spoken to call centre workers, labour hire workers, who've felt the stress. I know people who've resigned from these boiler room operations where they had to make KPI’s, every day on the whiteboard, how many debts have you issued today? And they just found the whole task just too difficult.

BARTHOLOMEW: Were not these kinds of private operators ever used by Labor to do a similar job?

SHORTEN: The private operators are part of the landscape, there's no question - when you've got surge work or there's a big, big amount of work that has to be done. I'm not arguing that the private sector doesn't have a role, but I am arguing that the people who write the tender, the people who hold the pen so to speak, are the ones who set the priorities. And this is a Government who wants to do things at lowest cost. I don't trust this Government when it comes to administering our safety net. Also, it's how much work you give the private sector. I think our public service should have knowledge in the system, in the organisation, institutional memory, people who are skilled at dealing with distressed people, people who are skilled at being able to identify the frauds from the genuine cases. But if you're a labour hire worker and you're stuck in a call centre somewhere in one of the suburbs of the big Australian cities, and you're told here's your quota of death notices you've got to issue, that's not connected to the system, which is meant to deliver a safety net. I mean, our pension system and welfare system is a safety net. And I don't like it when people cut corners on the safety net.

BARTHOLOMEW: These debt collecting companies are also required to report any plans by a customer or client to go to the media or a politician. What do you think is behind that?

SHORTEN: I just think it's part of the cover up. The fact that they don't want any whistleblowers to show you that they already know what they're doing is not great. I mean, it speaks volumes, doesn't it, that they want to have secrecy provisions. This is taxpayer money being issued to large organisations on behalf of the Government, to serve the people. And so, it's not just serving the people, but it's taxpayer money. So why does the use of taxpayer money have to be shrouded in secrecy? I mean, it's our taxes.

BARTHOLOMEW: While I've got you, Bill Shorten, there's only a couple of days to go of a parliamentary sitting and what's been an extraordinary year. You are a former long-time union leader yourself. What do you make of the Government's industrial relations reform package and especially the unexpected inclusion of a change to the better off overall test?

SHORTEN: Do I think everything the Government says is wrong? No, I don't. But I have a fundamental view when it comes to wages and working conditions in this country, having been a student of industrial relations and spent my working life standing up for working people and making sure they're safe and making sure they are productive, that, to be blunt, this Government in charge, Liberals in charge of industrial relations is like having Dracula in charge of the blood bank. Wages have stagnated - there's a proof point. They don't want to increase people's superannuation - there's a proof point. The fact of the matter is that 30 per cent of Australia's workforce are now in casualised and insecure work - there's a proof point that this Government, I think, relies on an economic model which sees two groups of Australian workers, some in permanent work, maybe yourself, maybe myself, maybe a whole lot of people. And then there's an underclass, casualised workers, who are the people who are the first to lose their jobs in economic crisis, can't be able to contemplate getting a mortgage, a car, find it difficult to pay the rent each week. And I think what we've got to do is give people agency in their work, control over their work decisions. And this government, I don't think is up for that detailed conversation.

BARTHOLOMEW: We'll see what happens to the bill in the parliament. Bill Shorten, thanks for your time today.

SHORTEN: Lovely to chat to you, thank you very much.

BARTHOLOMEW: Shadow Minister for Government Services in the Labor Party in Canberra there.