TRANSCRIPT: INTERVIEW ON THE KENNY REPORT, SKY NEWS, 31 March 2020

E&OE

Subjects: Coronavirus, Aviation Industry Support;

CHRIS KENNY:

Michael McCormack is in Wagga. His electorate is Wagga. Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, thanks for joining us, I appreciate your time.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Home town of Paul Kelly the footballer.

CHRIS KENNY:

I thought – I was going to suggest that. Paul Kelly, the former Swans champion might have hailed from the Riverina. He did indeed.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

He's a good mate of mine.

CHRIS KENNY:

Oh, good man, good man. Now, tell us about this package announced yesterday. It's still difficult to digest – a $130 billion package to try keep millions of Australians in work. But with well over 200,000 companies already registering for interest, it shows not only that the package is going to be well received but it shows just how much pain there is, how many jobs are in jeopardy across this country.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Oh, it does, Chris, and I can tell you as of five o'clock today, there has been 285,623 unique ABN registrations. And so we're providing historic wage subsidies to around six million workers. They're going to receive a flat payment of $1,500 a fortnight through their employer before tax. It's $130 billion, as you say. This JobKeeper payment is going to help keep Australians in jobs as we tackle together, as a nation, the significant impact that the coronavirus is having on our economy. And, of course, as Paul Kelly, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer has just indicated, we're tackling it on the health front too and so this is a battle we have to win, we must win and as the Prime Minister has said repeatedly, we will win on two fronts, both an economic and a health front.

CHRIS KENNY:

Now, just to get into this JobSeeker payment, some of the detail of it and what I think is one of the barnacles. Firstly, it's important for people to understand that if there's a $1,500 subsidy, $1,500 a fortnight subsidy going to an employer to keep someone on their books, they can still pay them more.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Indeed.

CHRIS KENNY:

They can still pay them their normal wage but they are getting that subsidised through the $750 a week from the government. But one of the problems I would see with this scheme is that it's a flat rate. So there'll be some people who are on casual wages below that, a part-time casual arrangement and so they may actually end up being paid more.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

With more in their pocket.

CHRIS KENNY:

Under this system, is that a problem, because it's a great disincentive for people looking for other work or even after all this has passed us?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Yes, but we have to, obviously, make sure that we support the economy and that's what we're doing. Yes, of course there'll be certainly winners from this. There'll be people for whom the $1,500 is going to support what they did, it's going to support their business, it's going to support the economy and that's the important thing. Now, the payment will be paid to employers for up to six months for each eligible employee who is on their books from the 1st of March 2020. It's retained, or it continues to be engaged by that employer. So, yes, it's – you know, there'll be people who say, "Oh, why don't you do this or why don't you do that?" But, look, at the end of the day, Chris, it's going to support the economy.

It's going to help keep workers with money in their pockets. It's going to help cash flow in businesses. It's going to help as many businesses as we can to keep their doors open. And, of course, this JobKeeper payment is going to be reimbursed from the first week of May. So it's – it's a good system. It's certainly taken a lot of work to get it to this point. Of course, Parliament is going to have to be recalled for a day to pass it through, but I know it's going to have broad support. It has to have broad support. We have to support our workers and our economy and it's going to support six million of them.

CHRIS KENNY:

Well, given the criteria and that is even the biggest companies in this land, if they lose 50 per cent of their turnover they'll qualify.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

50 per cent of their turnover, yes.

CHRIS KENNY:

So you don't have to --

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

and 30 per cent for those --

CHRIS KENNY:

30 per cent for smaller companies.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

-- that are businesses under – under a million dollars.

CHRIS KENNY:

Yep. Yeah. Most companies it's 30 per cent.

But for the really big companies 50 per cent. But even with those numbers, of course I would expect our major airlines, Qantas and Virgin, are going to qualify for this; they're going to be able to access this to try to keep a lot of their workforce on the payroll. Is it a bit rich for these two airlines, given they're going to benefit from this scheme to then have their hands out today looking for, effectively, grants from Government to keep them alive?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well, of course the aviation industry in general provides $45 billion to our economy. It employs 250,000 workers and of course, many of those tens of thousands working for the two carriers who you mentioned. Well, Government wants a two-airline industry coming out of COVID-19. I mean, times are especially tough for all aviation. That's why we announced $715 million – I announced that at Wagga Wagga, indeed, including $159 million backdated to February 1, lifting the fuel excise, the AirServices Australia and security screening charges.

That's why last weekend I announced another nearly $300 million of additional measures, including $198 million to subsidise regional airlines flying into those 138 centres, or so and of course underwriting our regional airlines to the tune of $100 million. And there has been over $1 billion put into our airline sector. It's needed. Of course, when you close all those routes, international, domestic and routes, our aviation industry, of course, is left on its knees. So we want to make sure that we've got two major airlines coming out of this. It's going to be hard, it's going to be difficult, particularly for regional airlines, they're hurting too. So we want to be there for all our airline companies and making sure that we can support as many of those workers in the industry as we can and that's what we're doing through JobKeeper and through other initiatives.

CHRIS KENNY:

Now, these social distancing or physical distancing rules right around our country are pretty arduous but as Paul Kelly was just saying in that interview, the take-up by Australians, the adherence, the understanding of Australians to these right across the country has been very, very quick and very, very good. The Federal Government, of course, is not in charge of law enforcement but are you concerned with drones in the sky and police cars going into parks and basically sending people home, telling them to get out of parks, people. People might be lying on their own and sunbaking, obviously not interacting with others. Surely there's got to be a bit of give or take here as long as people are sensibly not gathering in big groups?

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Well, yes and no. I drove home from the office last night and it was just on dusk and you know, there were dozens of people out in the local park doing a boot camp. Now, they can't do that. They simply can't do it because what we need to do is, as Professor Kelly has just said and Brendan Murphy said over and over and over again, is we have to stop this milling in parks and congregating with each other at such close distance. We have to practise that social distancing because we've got to contain and minimise the spread. We've been very, very lucky. We've had, you know, as far as our country is concerned, 19 deaths and that's 19 too many and it's very, very sad. But by the close of business today we will have had about 240,000 tests.

We've got a very good success rate as far as making sure that we minimise the spread of the virus, making sure that we've contained it as best we can. Sadly, we've lost 19 people. Nineteen Australians lost their lives, and so for them and their families, that is absolutely tragic. But our record compared to other countries is pretty good. We want to make it - make sure that we keep flattening that curve, as Professor Kelly has said, and the only way we can do that is by people making sure that if they're told to, to self-isolate and practising social distancing at every step of the way.

CHRIS KENNY:

Thanks so much for joining us, Deputy Prime Minister.

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Any time at all, Chris.

Shane Manning