E&OE TRANSCRIPT
TELEVISION INTERVIEW
ABC NEWS BREAKFAST
WEDNESDAY 5 AUGUST, 2020

SUBJECTS: Businesses impacted by Melbourne’s Stage 4; Disability risks; Aged Care crisis.

LISA MILLAR, HOST: Well, the Prime Minister is expected to announce details today of a childcare relief package for parents in Victoria.

MICHAEL ROWLAND, HOST: It's likely to be welcome news to families facing the imminent closure of centres as part of the state's shut down. The Shadow Government Services Minister and Victorian Labor MP Bill Shorten joins us now. Mr Shorten, good morning.

BILL SHORTEN, MEMBER FOR MARIBYRNONG: Good morning, Michael.

ROWLAND: The Prime Minister this morning has already said there’ll be subsidies of some form offered to Victorian childcare centres, to ensure they stay open and importantly keep their employees on the books. Is that a good move?

SHORTEN: It is a good move. I mean, I've got to put this message to Mr Morrison and perhaps leaders in other parts of Australia. We can't wind back the supports which were put in place for the pandemic, when Victoria is still going through the pandemic. It's a sad day in Melbourne today. Where I live in Moonee Ponds seems to be hairdresser's central. There'll be no more haircuts from tonight. Our streets are like ghost towns. And yet I sort of feel this sense of almost an out of body experience when I listen to the current Federal Government talk about matters to do with JobKeeper and JobSeeker. Our businesses, our people here in Melbourne and Victoria, they're doing it really tough. I don't know why we're playing this game of waiting to see whether or not the Federal Government will work out that Victoria's doing it tough. We simply are. JobSeeker should be extended. JobKeeper should be extended. We shouldn't have Coalition Ministers running around, jabbering about the mutual obligations when there are no jobs. So I would just ask perhaps the Government, let's make quick decisions. It’s no good leaving it for weeks and months, whether or not a small business can get JobKeeper The pandemic is now. It's real and we need decisions now. The facts aren't going to change in two weeks. They're the facts now.

ROWLAND: Okay, and picking up on that, should the government consider putting childcare workers back on JobKeeper?

SHORTEN: That's the tidiest scheme. I sometimes feel - and excuse a degree of frustration, but it's our small businesses who are doing it hard. It's our people who are doing it hard - but I sometimes feel like the Government sort of makes the decision to wind something back, then it's rushing together something with an ice cream stick, some sticky tape and a rubber band, and doing something separate for childcare. Early year educators are workers. Why not just keep it in the one scheme, JobKeeper? Why create more work for yourself? Why do these small businesses have to have new paperwork? It's a bit like pandemic leave. But why is it that we can have pandemic leave in aged care but not the area I'm very interested in as well as aged care, disability care. You've got workers who work for various people with disabilities. It's exactly the same profile as aged care. And you've got 720 group disability homes in Melbourne. Why can't they just get pandemic leave? Why are we doing this little bit here and a little bit there. You know, it's wrong.

ROWLAND: You've been very vocal on the aged care front. You got a very personal connection, as I think most of our viewers know by now. Yesterday in a committee hearing at Parliament House, the Government and the head of the Health Department, Brendan Murphy, refused to release the full list of Victorian aged care centres facing Coronavirus challenges because quote ‘of reputational issues involved’, the aged care centres did not want their names put out there because of fear of their reputations being sullied. What do you make of that?

SHORTEN: Well, first of all, I think Brendan Murphy has been outstanding throughout this process. But in terms of reputational risk, if people are dying in your aged care facilities, not saying their name doesn't bring them back to life. The reputation damage is done in aged care. Now, there are some very good places, but the reasons why we have such a poor aged care system is because we've a semi-itinerant workforce of low paid workers who are excellent, just not paid enough. We've had the privatisation for 20 years. We've had a safeguard system. We knew from Newmarch in Sydney, where there were so many fatalities back at the first wave, that this could be a problem. So the idea that we don't mention a particular house for reputational risk, that's no consolation to families who have got elderly members sick or dead. But the one thing I will say about aged care, we cannot get a single report about whether or not there's been a single person with a disability who's got COVID. I mean, so I just think that we're looking at the trees but not the whole forest. There is a problem in aged care. I mean, hello. It's a disaster.

ROWLAND: Before you want to get your views on a topic that's created a lot of conversation on the show this morning, we had Jim Penman, the head of Jim's Mowing, on a bit earlier, and he, as you may know, has decided to try to flout the restrictions. The Premier Daniel Andrews, says lawn mowing is banned, people doing all mowing in other people's houses because of the restrictions. He says, well, he's going to do that and even pay the fines if his contractors who get fined for breaching those restrictions. What do you think of his approach?

SHORTEN: At one level, I can understand it. And I do have a question, I haven't seen him this morning, does he have a beard? Because you know, his brand is a beard. But more seriously, I get the almost dual nature of the argument. On one hand, be it cutting the lawn, be it the cleaning, be it some of these services, they are quite fundamental. But on the other hand, I suppose this is what I would say, and I've been speaking to literally hundreds of constituents and small businesses. Why don't we just try and finish this thing for once, once and for all? Now, I speak to a lot of people who are being incredibly inconvenienced. They’re not happy about how it's all come to be here. But I think the mood in Victoria now, I mean, acknowledging the frustration of people like Jim and the contractors, is let's do this right, let's do it now. I mean, every little thing will make a difference. I'm not asking people to do it for some big cause. Do it for yourself. Do these restrictions for your family. And let's also do it for the people on the front line. I want to give a shout out this morning, that we've got a lot of exhausted and fatigued frontline medical care staff, some of that have now become very seriously ill. This is why I think we just have to do this once. I mean, as much as I'm worried about the contractors, I'm worried about the mental health tsunami. We are in literally unknown territory. We've never seen this before in our lifetime. So I get the frustration. But let's just do this once and let's just get it done, for goodness sakes.

ROWLAND: And I'm sure lots of Australians, every Australian, would echo your thoughts on the hardworking health care professionals. Bill Shorten, thank you so much for joining us on News Breakfast.

SHORTEN: Stay safe. Cheers.