KARL STEFANOVIC, HOST: The Prime Minister joins us now. PM, how good were the Lions last night?
PRIME MINISTER ANTHONY ALBANESE: You would be very pleased, Karl, as a Queenslander. They got up just at the last-minute. I must admit, though, I only switched it on right at the end. I was at the Jobs and Skills Summit dinner.
STEFANOVIC: I was going to lead off with that but I thought it was a bit dull but I'm going to go to that right now. The accusation this morning is that you are a slave to the unions. Are you?
PRIME MINISTER: I don't know who that accusation is from, Karl. Probably from the usual suspects. But when I sat last night at dinner, the head of the Council of Small Business was on my left side and on my right side was Richard Pratt, the head of Visy Industries it didn't strike me that I was in the middle of a union conference. There were unions, business. There are people from right across the spectrum, right across society and that's a great thing.
STEFANOVIC: Business leaders though, I'm sure they have voiced it to you that your multi-employer bargaining deal will be disruptive and it will be costly. How do you respond to that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well they haven't all said that. There are differences within the business community. I think it is a good thing, Karl, that the Council of Small Business as well as the Business Council of Australia have come to separate agreements about principles with the Australian Council of Trade Unions. That's a good thing that you have business and unions working together, trying to work through issues. We know that enterprise bargaining isn't working. Everyone has agreed on that. There are some differences as to the way forward, the right solutions – and they will be worked through. But you would expect there to be some differences. You wouldn't expect to bring 140 people together and have 140 people agree on the way forward on every detail. But there is broad agreement, for example, about the Better Off Overall Test becoming more flexible. There is broad agreement that we need to lift wages and we need to lift productivity. The discussions that have taken place both before the summit but during the summit yesterday appeared I'm sure today have been extremely productive.
STEFANOVIC: What is the difference between your idea and Scott Morrison's 18 months ago?
PRIME MINISTER: What we have done is bring people together. Scott Morrison established a process that didn't go anywhere and then produced legislation that didn't relate to the process that was undertaken by Christian Porter. Christian Porter certainly chaired the processes in good faith. My understanding was that progress was being made appeared and then it was cut off at the knees and legislation came in that would have made people worse off and would have not satisfied what we need to do with the industrial relations system. So when we produce legislation, we will consult on it and it will be out there for input. But it will be based upon many of the discussions that have taken place at the summit here. We want to bring people together. We want to look for agreement, not look for argument – I think that's a positive thing and it has been terrific. The spirit that was there in the room last night at the dinner was just so positive. I'm really heartened by it.
STEFANOVIC: Just moving on, your hand-picked speaker last night, Ross Garnaut, didn't mince his words about the state of the economy saying high commodity prices should be driving budget surpluses. He says it is time to bring back a mining tax. Will you?
PRIME MINISTER: No, that's not on the agenda. But it is a good thing that people are able to put forward ideas and Ross Garnaut, of course, is someone of great experience. He was Bob Hawke's economic advisor during the last economic summit way back in 1983. Times have changed, of course. The last economic summit that Bob Hawke held there was one woman in the room. One. This time around there is equal representation of men and women. You have new industries emerging and you have different solutions for different times.
STEFANOVIC: So there will be no mining tax?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
STEFANOVIC: All right. Businesses and unions jointly agree that paid parental leave needs to be extended from 18 to 26 weeks. Dan Andrews says ‘pull the child care lever’. Will you?
PRIME MINISTER: We are going to have a look at paid parental leave. We certainly would like to do more, but some of these issues, of course, are within the budget constraints which are there. So we have inherited $1 trillion of debt. Yes, it is a worthy idea and worthy of consideration.
STEFANOVIC: One final one on a lighter note the as you know, PM, I have a strange sense of humour. You don't know what is coming now. I know you are a little nervous.
PRIME MINISTER: This could go anywhere. Do I need to sit down?
STEFANOVIC: No, you are fine. I think you are fine. Did the boss of Qantas really get a lift with you in the government jet to Canberra?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes.
STEFANOVIC: Do you think that is kind of ironic?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, we had the Business Council of Australia dinner on Wednesday night. It seems like a long time ago now. And so we put a whole lot of people on the jet that we made available so that people could make it to the summit. You will be pleased to know that there will be a charge issued so it wasn't a free trip. It will help the government to pay for the flight the fact that there were so many business people from the Business Council of Australia and many industry leaders were there.
STEFANOVIC: You didn't lose his bags, did you?
PRIME MINISTER:. He was well looked after by the Royal Australian Air Force, who are very diligent. There have been no lost bags on the Royal Australian Air Force ever.
STEFANOVIC: Good on you PM. Thank you for your time. Appreciate it.