Thread by @iMusing

good morning (again) from unceded Kaurna lands☀️today on #Insiders are SBS Bureau chief Anna Henderson, ABC Melbs radio host Raf Epstein and Ch 10 politics editor/murdoch columnist Professor Peter van Onselen. The interviewees are Sally McManus and Jennifer Westacott.

opening spiel: skills shortages, widening gender pay gap, falling real wages, rising inflation and cost of living… goodness me the Coalition left another massive economic mess, just like the GFC in 2008.
Cool of media to notice now. #Insiders

Speers reels off a list of workers in low paid feminised industries. Underpaid and under-valued workers for as long as these jobs have existed. #Insiders

the montage preview the jobs and skills summit this coming week. The opinion of Peter Dutton of Sally McManus gets two runs. His opinion of Jennifer Westacott remains unknown. #Insiders

#MakingNews is the joint press release by unions and business. They want more vocational training. The REASON this is a priority also goes unremarked. #Insiders

also #MakingNews are loud demands that Labor repeal Morrison government tax cut legislation. #Insiders

Speers editorialises about what amounts to “real reform” and asks the panel what Albanese “needs” to do. He also says the economy is very different to a year ago - not really - but on what grounds he does not say. #Insiders

multi-employer bargaining? Raf puts the advantages to small business of this. It saves bosses negotiating with their staff. Speers says pattern bargaining as per the 1970s is where the debate is at the moment. #Insiders

oh I see. The backwards bullshit about the 1970s is just some garbage Dutton threw out and Speers repeated on the ABC. Van Onselen says well Sally McManus is a modern woman running the union movement which would not have happened in the 1970s #Insiders

the Liberal Party will sit on the sidelines and not attend and speak into the debate without being “dictated to” by sitting at the table says Henderson. Epstein says it is a win already (for Labor) and van Onselen says it is a talkfest. #Insiders

lmao after van Onselen says not to overstate concrete outcomes and it is a talkfest, Speers asks “but isn’t your wife going to the summit”? Gets a “thanks for that David”. He is not saying there are not a lot of erudite people in the room, van Onselen clarifies. #Insiders

lots of chatter about the politics of an event - that is extremely well organised and planned, inclusive, attended by over 140 delegations, with a joint press release of principles - that has not occurred. The panel speculate about what cannot be achieved. #Insiders

skilled migrant workers. Where are they going to live, asks Epstein. Transport infrastructure, schools, hospitals, are state matters says Speers. Henderson says what about super, all this money set aside, what could it be spent on. #Insiders

there a big migrant communities here says Henderson, they need somewhere to live and park their car, the country is set up for big migrant intake but you have to do your homework she says. #Insiders

clip of Albanese drinking beer at a concert (I forget where sorry). Would a woman have got that response? asks Henderson. “Patricia” has a think piece on this, apparently. Shout out to Rana Collins from NITV who shot the footage, says Henderson. #Insiders

interview. McManus opens with how workers bargaining power has been smashed. She says that is why wages are falling and why workers need bargaining power again via cross-employer negotiations. #Insiders

the system needs to be upgraded for the workplaces of today instead of the workplaces of 30 years ago, says McManus. So you mean more strikes? asks Speers. Not more strikes, says McManus, more wage rises👏🏼👏🏼#Insiders

she can understand the problem Sally is trying to solve, says Westacott, with cross-employer bargaining. She says productivity is key to wage rises. No word on real wages falling while workers adapt to working thru two years of pandemic, a massive productivity boost. #Insiders

streams of whataboutery from Westacott. Is this the right way to do things? Leaving aside cleaners. Lots of work days were “lost” to strikes decades ago, says Westacott [paraphrased]. She does not mention the millions of free work days that bosses steal from workers. #Insiders

McManus says there has been no real wage rise for Ten. Years. Now. Speers says let’s go to collective bargaining. Westacott says let’s get rid of hypothetical workers? Says she and Sally want the same thing - higher wages, which seems a bold claim. #Insiders

better off overall v no disadvantage tests. McManus says the system needs to be simple and fair for everyone and the no disadvantage was replaced by BOOT because some employers were rorting it and using it to drive down wages. #Insiders

fairness, simplicity. Speers says the gender pay gap (paying males more than everyone else with no link to their productivity) has been widening in recent years [under an aggressively misogynist government - Ed]. #Insiders

the federal government wants >250 staff businesses to publish gender pay figures. #Insiders

the job of the summit, says Westacott, is to re-set skilled migration figures and “cutting edge” industries like technology and decarbonisation. McManus says investment in skills and the next generation of skilled workers. #Insiders

longer visas says Westacott. More government spending on apprentices. Bosses want more subsidies. Westacott says there has been “underinvestment” and “we” have to get TAFE “going again”. My god. The make-Labor-fix-everything vibe is overwhelming. #Insiders

every single comment from the biz boss here is an indictment of utterly garbage Coalition economic management and they never EVER say so at the time. They shout about it when Labor is in government, creating the impression this all happened overnight. #Insiders

surprising amount of consensus, says van Onselen. We have been in this adversarial environment for a while now, he says, and compares Labor to the Coalition, which is irrelevant, adds that Dutton is “remaining adversarial” well, yes. He can not be better. #Insiders

important that the skills side not be window dressing, says Henderson. Pay people enough to live, she says. Epstein also summarises the union-biz consensus points. “Something will come out of this” says Speers. The panel shifted a fair way in 40 minutes. #Insiders

clip of Albanese announcing the Bell inquiry. Epstein says the “other powers” caveat means Bell could request additional powers if she needs them to find out what happened. She has access to all the records, he says. #Insiders

this is an administrative inquiry, says Epstein. He draws attention to the SG advice. Says Donoghue is the blackest of black letter lawyers and he said there has been a fundamental undermining of democratic principle [paraphrased]. #Insiders

the political scientist in me, says Professor van Onselen, is profoundly outraged. #Insiders

Epstein says we have to get to the bottom of it. An outdated ministry list elicits chuckles but I looked up too late to get the joke, sorry. Henderson runs the “too much time on secret ministries” line, but not to wholly agree with it. #Insiders

governments can chew gum and walk says van Onselen. Just because they announce inquiries does not mean they are not governing. Clip of Marles and his purported “bad choice of words”. #Insiders

also the #Robodebt inquiry. Obligatory performative concern for victims - over 7 years later. Speers says Albanese will be at #NPC tomorrow marking 100 days abd “yes there have been a lot of inquiries announced (have there? 2?) but the foreign policy achievements too” #Insiders

clip of O’Neill in support of the Uluru Statement from the Heart. Theatre of the absurd, says van Onselen. He speaks to people who do not listen to politicians, says Henderson, that’s why they do FM radio. She sets out the likely “Shaq attack” social media strategy. #Insiders

possibly the media thought Shaq would make a statement about the importance of empowering First Nations people, that did not happen, but it will in the social media campaign [paraphrased] - Henderson #Insiders

#TalkingPictures is up. Fiona is a back to you Speersy laydee. #Insiders

https://twitter.com/insidersabc/status/1563676484363059200

#FinalObservations 1 is Epstein promoting the Dan and Dom (Andrews and Perottet) show and observing that the multiple secret ministries inquiry is due to report the day before the Vic state election. #Insiders

#Finalobservations 2 is Henderson saying there is pressure building on the federal government to work with states and territories to get children out of prisons (Porter kicked this can along for years, federal Coalition governments did exactly NOTHING on it). #Insiders

I missed whatever van Onselen said. The outtake is a Parkinson mash up of Morrison saying jobs. #Insiders

https://twitter.com/insidersabc/status/1563677744818376705

this has been another edition of watching #Insiders so you don’t have to👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼