SUBJECTS: Industrial Relations Reform; China; High Ambition Coalition to end plastic pollution

PETER STEFANOVIC, HOST: And joining us live now is the Environment and Water Minister, Tanya Plibersek. Minister, good to see you. Thanks for your time this morning. We may as well start there – do you hope there are no hard feelings when it comes to Novak Djokovic? 

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Well, I think the previous government was perfectly right to keep him out when they did because he refused to follow Australia’s rules. But the rules now don’t require you to be vaccinated to come into the country, so, again, it’s fine for us to follow the rules. And Andrew Giles, the minister, has assured me that anybody else in similar circumstances would get the same treatment. So I think, you follow the rules then, you follow the rules now. 

STEFANOVIC: More breaking news this hour as well – tugboat workers, they’ve already walked off the job this morning. They’ve jumped the gun on a Fair Work Commission hearing that was scheduled for this afternoon. What do you make of that? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, just to be clear, this is a company that was planning a lockout of its workforce. I think this really shows that it’s important that our new industrial laws give the opportunity for the Fair Work Commission to intervene in these intractable disputes and actually get people – even force them – to come to the bargaining table. We want to see less industrial disputation, not more. And this is an example of one of those disputes really that’s been an argument for years. And having the parties sit down and be forced to negotiate something through I think is the right approach. And that’s what the new industrial laws will do. 

STEFANOVIC: But doesn’t this just confirm that companies, if they can’t agree, can just go and strike before action is taken to the Fair Work Commission? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, well, you don’t particularly want people striking. You don’t want companies locking out their workforce. It would be much more beneficial for everyone if the Fair Work Commission could call those parties to the table and make them sit down and talk things through. And that’s one of the new features of the laws that we’re trying to get passed through the parliament at the moment – for the Fair Work Commission to have that power. 

STEFANOVIC: Yeah, but doesn’t this show that the commission is not making the relevant parties sit down, people are just going to strike anyway? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, they haven’t had the power to make the parties sit down and work through this type of dispute. And one of the changes that we’re trying to make is to give them the power to do that, to bring the parties together and force them to talk. When you’ve got an intractable dispute like this it’s important to get people to the table, even if they’re being difficult. 

STEFANOVIC: Right. The timing of this is worrying – five, six weeks out from Christmas now. But it’s not new. Talks have been going on here for three years. It’s resolved nothing. Unions have striked quite constantly in that time. How does this get worked out in the next four or five weeks? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Well, I’m not sure about this particular dispute because we haven’t passed those new laws through the parliament yet. But it is an example of why we need to. We need to give the Fair Work Commission the power to get the parties to sit down at the table, even if they don’t want to, to sit down at the table and work through disputes like this. And we’ve got, you know, a number of disputes that we’re looking at across the country. I think in New South Wales we’re looking at train strikes again shortly, another example of where if a dispute becomes intractable it’s useful to have an umpire that can sit people down and force them to negotiate a dispute through. 

STEFANOVIC: Right. Speaking of negotiations, promising talks between the Prime Minister and President Xi at the G20. Realistically – and, again, we might be getting ahead of ourselves here – but when might trade bans be overturned by China? Is there a kind of loose time frame that you might have in mind at the moment? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Look, as soon as possible would be in Australia’s interests. But I don’t think anybody who watches these things closely thinks that there’s going to be big changes overnight. This is a very important first step. It’s opening a door, and we need to make sure that we’re taking the opportunity now to work through those trade disputes, which have been completely unfair from day one and have cost Australian farmers in particular a great deal. 

We want to see the trading relationship back on an even keel with China. I’m also very pleased to see that the free trade agreements with ASEAN and New Zealand are being updated at the moment, because it is a reminder that the more diversified our trading parties are, the better for Australia. 

STEFANOVIC: Just a final one in your wheelhouse here, Tanya – ending plastic pollution by 2040. How are we going to meet those targets? 

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Yeah, it’s going to be tough. The previous government set a target of 70 per cent of plastics being reused, recycled, diverted from landfill by 2025, and we’ve been stuck at 16 per cent for four years. So, it gives you an idea of the scale of the challenge that we’re facing. But I’m off to Tyrecycle now, I’m at Erskine Park. I’m off to a tyre recycling place right now. We know that by investing we can upgrade our recycling facilities. We’ve got a quarter of a balance dollars set aside to upgrade our recycling infrastructure. We’ll work with states and territories and with the private sector to collect more of this stuff to stop it going from landfill, but also we need to create the demand for the recycled product at the other end. So we’re looking at all of the measures possible to do that. I met with environment ministers from the states and territories a few weeks ago and we’re determined to have better regulation in place by 2025 so that we can meet those targets. 

STEFANOVIC: Okay. Tanya Plibersek, live for us there in Sydney, thank you so much. We’ll talk to you again soon.

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