Greg Jennett: So, the Albanese Government has many reasons for pushing ahead with its pursuit of Scott Morrison. At the same time, it is, though, about to enter the one week countdown to next week’s Jobs and Skills Summit, which begins here in Canberra next Thursday, so we caught up with Assistant Trade and Manufacturing Minister, Tim Ayres, today on both topics. 

Tim Ayres, welcome back to the program. Now, in the lead up to the Jobs and Skills Summit next week, you’ve been holding what I might describe as satellite discussions, which I want to get to in a moment. But can we start with Scott Morrison because claims are abounding today from the other side that the Government is somehow pursuing a witch hunt in wanting to hold another inquiry into the former Prime Minister. Why is there not some validity to that when you’ve got people like Richard Marles saying there should be, quote, “severe consequences” for Scott Morrison? 

Tim Ayres, Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister for Manufacturing: Well, I heard Stuart Robert say that on PK this morning and the problem with making this claim from Scott Morrison’s friends is, of course, that sometimes when you embark on a witch hunt you find a witch, and this has been an extraordinary abrogation of Prime Ministerial responsibility. It’s been an extraordinary breach of Westminster standards against a backdrop of a Government that debauched and diminished standards of government right over the life of the Morrison Government: the misuse of taxpayers’ funds for political purposes; the rorts that happened under the Government; and now, we find that Scott Morrison so distrusted his colleagues and so centralised power and authority in the Prime Minister’s office that he was secretly swearing himself into, as far as we know now, five ministries. It’s the kind of thing that diminishes people’s faith in democracy and we need to take steps as a government to get to the bottom of what actually happened here first of all and then set about the job of making sure that this can never happen again. 

Greg Jennett: All right. So, there’s also a tussle underway for different forms of investigation. Is the Government determined to investigate on its own terms, because there are rival suggestions coming from mobs like the Greens, that you might be able to have a parliamentary commission of inquiry – that’s their description – or will the Government go it alone? 

Assistant Minister Ayres: I think what we’ll do, as we’ve demonstrated all the way through the first part of this Government, is carefully work through the issues and make sure that we’ve got an investigation, an inquiry, that’s fit for purpose, and it’s job will be to make sure that we know what actually went wrong here, where were the breakdowns in responsibilities and convention, who was the authors of these breaches of our governance standards and Westminster system, so that we can as a Government make sure that we learn the lessons of that and put in place the reforms. We are determined to end this process with a set of reforms that deal with these questions, but also as you and your listeners would know, a federal integrity commission that’s got the capacity to clean up politics. We are determined to be a step change from the Morrison Government, to have much higher governance standards and rebuild the confidence and faith that Australians should have in their democracy and their elected representatives. 

Greg Jennett: Since you mentioned the potential or the soon to be designed commission of corruption, would the activities as we know them so far of Scott Morrison, to the best of your understanding, fall within the remit of such a commission, yet to be designed, it is true, but do you think it could? 

Assistant Minister Ayres: Well, the short story, Greg, is I don’t know. I’m not engaged in the design details of the Federal Integrity Commission. The Government and the cabinet will work through those over the coming weeks and months, as I say, in a careful and responsible way. The inquiry is designed to get to the bottom of what has actually gone on here and set out the kind of reforms that we need to undertake as a government. Many of those won’t touch the proposed Federal Integrity Commission. Very basic issues that have come out already, like it being a basic requirement that there be transparency about exactly who is the minister for what so Australians know who is responsible and accountable for decision making and so that departments and public servants and business and industry and trade unions and organisations in the community know who they’re engaging with, instead of this secretive shadow government that was a sort of walking, self-starting, conspiracy machine of its own. 

Greg Jennett: Look, some of that sounds absolutely within the ambit of the initial investigation that’s already on the drawing board. Why don’t we move on to the Jobs Summit now and as I referenced at the beginning, Tim Ayres, you’ve been involved in some lead up mini summits, I suppose you’d call it. One was with heavy industry. I’m wondering how they are looking beyond crippling energy prices at the moment to matters of full employment, to jobs and training. Wouldn’t payroll currently pale into insignificance on their cost sheet? 

Assistant Minister Ayres: Yeah, well, that is a really good introduction, actually, Greg. That’s almost precisely the discussion that we had. I should say, first, that ministers in the Government have set about the task of holding these mini summits right around the country to inform the deliberation of the Jobs and Skills Summit. More than 60 of these meetings have been held. The meetings that I was engaged in yesterday, firstly the heavy industry one, I was so impressed with the calibre of industry leadership that came – very significant heavy manufacturing companies, transport manufacturers, defence companies, trade unions – all keen to contribute and have an impact on the Government’s thinking on some of these big questions. And of course, at the beginning of the meeting I said that front of mind for many of these companies, of course, will be those big questions around energy price and supply. But if we’re going to set Australia up for the medium term and long term, those issues of skills shortages and getting us the right skills for the jobs of the future need to be the subject of discussion and agreement, getting the reforms right, if we’re going to set Australia up for the future and Australians up for the jobs of the future. 

Greg Jennett: Yeah, but what was their hierarchy of need? I mean, that was your sort of outline to them, are we right in assuming that energy is in fact, number one for them and they may well be for the next decade or beyond, far outstripping particularly with mechanisation, their needs for labour? 

Assistant Minister Ayres: Well, different industries have different energy use profiles and all of them are at different stages of their approach. Some of them are big users of electricity; some of them are big users of gas as a stock feed for their production processes, and of course they are all immediately concerned with those issues. But all of them had a big contribution to make on skills shortages. They are affecting all of the companies that we spoke with yesterday and it’s a common theme. It’s very difficult to talk to a business leader at the moment without them raising skills shortages. 

Some of the interesting things that came out of the discussions yesterday, I will just telegraph that, you know, were maybe what your listeners would be thinking about. Firstly, there’s a real appetite for discussions and creativity around skills shortages. Secondly, from heavy industry they know that there’s a cohort of young people out there who are keen to work in decarbonisation. That it’s one of areas that mobilises and gets young people excited and they see that as a pathway for young people coming in and working in post school trades and tertiary qualifications. And, thirdly, there is a big appetite for a bigger discussion across the community about finding good jobs for women in manufacturing, about expanding the number of women working in manufacturing, getting women and girls at school and post school getting engaged in manufacturing at the trades and engineering level. I was pretty encouraged by the maturity of the discussion and the appetite amongst those participants for real reform in those areas. 

Greg Jennett: All right. So, it sounds like they are ideas that at least some of those participants or their industry bodies might be able to bring to Canberra for the summit proper next week. Let’s see how that goes. Tim Ayres, for your thoughts on all these matters today, thanks again for joining us. We’ll talk soon. 

Assistant Minister Ayres: Thanks, Greg; any time.

ENDS