Victorian premier Daniel Andrews is muscling up for another fight with business and the federal government as he pushes forward with Australia’s first paid sick-leave trial for those in insecure employment.
The $246m trial announced on Monday will run for two years and will mean 150,000 eligible casual and contract workers in certain occupations will receive up to five days a year of sick or carer’s pay at the national minimum wage.
In an exclusive interview to mark the launch of Guardian Australia’s new Victorian state news section on Monday, Andrews – seeking his third term in office – outlined his reform agenda while criticising the federal government for a perceived lack of ambition.
“I got fit and well to come back, not to piss off. I’ve got a lot to do,” Andrews said, one year after the fall that badly injured his ribs and vertebrae.
High on the list is addressing the shortcomings of the growth in casual work, which he said the pandemic had “dramatically exposed”.
“The notion that we all collectively benefit from people not having any sick pay and having to choose between keeping their family fed or keeping their community safe, they’re not choices people should have to make,” Andrews said.
During Victoria’s second wave, people working in multiple jobs were more likely to contract and spread Covid-19. Some were continuing to work while awaiting test results or when they should have been self-isolating, given they could not afford to call in sick. It led to the introduction of payments to isolate.
While the sick-leave trial will be funded by the state government, Andrews said any ongoing scheme would be funded by an industry levy.
Asked if he was concerned about a backlash from business groups, Andrews replied: “It’s not a matter of ‘can business afford to support this?’ It’s a question of ‘can all of us afford not to do this?’
“Can we continue to have a situation where literally tens of thousands, maybe more Victorians, are in completely vulnerable, uncertain, fragile, insecure circumstances? That’s not good for them. It’s not good for their kids. It’s not good for their families. It’s not good for any of us,” he said.
“We need to have a system where everybody can access sick leave.”
When Andrews first flagged the idea of a sick-leave scheme in 2020, the then-federal industrial relations minister Christian Porter described it as “a business and employment-killing approach”.
“I will not easily forget Christian Porter defending the fact that there isn’t a proper framework for insecure work,” Andrews said.
“[Porter] said, ‘Oh they’re all paid more per hour, so they should put away their own sick pay.’ It’s just quite unreal, frankly.”
It’s not the first time the Victorian government has targeted taxes at specific groups to help fund reforms. The mental health levy, announced in last year’s state budget, targets businesses that pay more than $10m in wages. It was a key recommendation of a royal commission into the sector and is expected to raise almost $3bn to fund mental health services over four years.
There’s also a windfall gains tax for developers, set to come into effect next year, a tax for electric vehicle users and a tax for homeowners who keep their properties in inner and middle Melbourne vacant for more than six months, among others.
Andrews was unapologetic about the need to raise money to pay for social reform, and clearly prepared to contrast his record with that of prime minister Scott Morrison federally.
“If you haven’t got a reform agenda, you haven’t got an agenda at all. You’re just occupying the office,” he said. “You’re just content to beat your opponent. That’s not what I offer. And it’s not what I think our country and our state needs.”
However, the state government’s most recent reform proposal – a levy to fund social housing – was scrapped after 10 days in what was considered by many a tactical retreat by Andrews ahead of the state election on 26 November.
Andrews maintains the government had secured a deal with industry to introduce a major planning overhaul, which would boost their profits by $7bn, in exchange for a 1.75% levy on newly built developments with three or more dwellings or lot subdivisions.
The levy was expected to raise more than $800m each year, paying for up to 1,700 new social and affordable homes each year, and was to come into effect when the government’s $5.3bn “big housing build” wraps up in 2024.
The opposition swiftly began calling it a “housing tax” but Andrews said ditching the proposal wasn’t a backdown.
“No one should confuse this for the government deciding it was all too hard. It was frankly obscene, the people who for years demanded planning reforms … were then unwilling to share those super profits with people who are some of the least powerful in our community, the most disadvantaged,” he said.
With an estimated 100,000 people on the public housing waiting list in Victoria, Andrews now seems to have pinned his hopes on a Labor win at the upcoming federal election to resolve the issue.
“The last time we had a very big social and affordable housing building program was when we had a federal Labor government who partnered with us coming out of the GFC [global financial crisis] and we got thousands of additional units built,” he said.
“We will definitely need a partner in Canberra.”
Despite questions over federal Labor leader Anthony Albanese’s appetite for reform, Andrews said he had no doubt Albanese was there for the right reasons.
“I’ve known Albo for 25 years and he is a person of great conviction,” Andrews said. “He doesn’t want to win just to beat Scott Morrison. He wants to win so he gets the opportunity and the obligation to govern and get things done.”
Throughout the interview, Andrews repeatedly returned to expressing frustration with the federal Coalition, pointing to their unwillingness to partner with state and territory governments in areas such as renewable energy, skills and Tafe and mental health.
He said despite both Victoria’s royal commission and a federal productivity report highlighting the cost to the economy of poor mental health, there seemed to be little funding on offer from the commonwealth.
“You can’t put a few hundred million dollars on the table and pretend that that’s going to get this job done. We’re spending $3.8bn. I reckon Victorians have worked out that if I thought you could get the job done for say $300m, I’d probably spend $300m,” he said.
“Big reform comes with big investment, and big reform is best when it’s framed with big ambitions, not for yourself, not for your place in history, but for every person you serve, every family.”
He also questioned the federal government’s refusal to consider pleas from the Victorian and New South Wales governments to distribute GST in a way that would compensate them for their spending on the pandemic.
“This is a one-in-100-year event and just carving up the GST with no regard for what Victoria and NSW has been through just doesn’t make any sense,” Andrews said.
“This is not a parochial agenda. It’s just a fairness agenda.”
On the subject of climate change, and despite the failure of a plan from Mike Cannon-Brookes to buy AGL Energy and shut its coal plants early, Andrews predicted solar, wind and batteries would be powering the state within the next eight to 10 years.
“This transition is happening and the strangest thing is that you see conservative politicians, who will talk about the fact that this will cripple an industry as an excuse not to act when the industry itself is already acting,” he said.
“It’s a great opportunity. It’s a massive opportunity.”
Earlier this month, Andrews announced a plan to accelerate the rollout of offshore wind energy generation projects in the state, setting rolling targets of 2GW installed by 2030, 4GW by 2035, and 9GW by 2040.
He also sees “opportunity” in Melbourne’s CBD, although he doesn’t believe it will return to what it was like before Covid-19.
“It’s a bit silly to be bagging people for choosing to spend time doing the school drop-off or pick-up, not spending time on the train or on a freeway every morning and every night,” Andrews said.
“If you can, why wouldn’t you spend some of your time working from home? I think the future here is maybe more people living in the CBD.”
Andrews also suggested the “great Australian dream” of owning a home was less important to younger generations, especially given the increasing cost of property – the median price of a home in Melbourne is now $1.1m.
“Not everyone has intergenerational wealth or the ability to act like a bank. So this is a really significant challenge,” he said.
“We’re always talking about the great Australian dream, absolutely. But I get a sense, I’ve talked to my kids and their friends, they’re much more focused on perhaps living where they want to live and ownership is not such a big thing. They are happy to rent with secure terms.”
For someone who claims politics isn’t a popularity contest, Andrews has had it in droves, at least according to polling. Even as he posed for Guardian Australia’s photographer last week, he was mobbed by a bridal party to pose for selfies. This is despite overseeing some of the world’s longest Covid lockdowns, a battered budget and a major infrastructure agenda beset by overruns and delays.
Certainly his pandemic profile was polarising, and there were sustained protests over vaccine mandates and the government’s pandemic bill in November last year, during which a life-sized gallows and an effigy of the premier was paraded.
Andrews said he understood the frustration of many Victorians but elements of the protests – including the threats against politician’s wives and children – were of “such an ugliness” he’d never seen before.
“Our democracy is stronger and healthier for a diversity of views but decency has to count for something as well,” he said.
There are also two corruption inquiries under way, one into the moderate faction of the Labor party, led by former minister Adem Somyurek, who continues to stir up trouble for the government. It was Somyurek’s branch-stacking operation that led to the Victorian ALP being placed under control of the national executive, meaning rank-and-file members have been unable to vote in preselections for two years.
If Andrews can win a third election in November and serve until next May, he will overtake John Cain Jnr as Labor’s longest-serving Victorian premier and be immortalised with a statue out the front of 1 Treasury Place.
Will he serve a full four years? He says despite the physical and mental challenges of the past two years he hopes so.
“As difficult as it was, I think I’m fitter and healthier for it, in a strange way.
“I’ve got a lot of work to do still.
“I’ll be here for as long as my colleagues and my community want me. It’s a great honour. But again, you’re not here to occupy the office, you’re here to get things done. And I don’t think any government has got as much done as us.”
