Union push for Australian jobs summit
Updated
Australia's peak union body, the ACTU, is urging the prime minister to convene a national jobs summit. The call comes as the global mining giant BHP announces plans to shed up to six thousand jobs - more than half of them in Australia. The mining sector job cuts have also reignited calls for the emissions trading scheme to be delayed.
Presenter: Hayden Cooper
Speakers: ACTU president, Sharan Burrow; Chief executive of the Australian Minerals Council, Mitch Hooke
HAYDEN COOPER: It took a sobering announcement from BHP Billiton to propel a prediction to reality - 3,300 jobs are set to go from several mines.
For the broader economy, the numbers could go much higher.
SHARAN BURROW: Unless we intervene, we could certainly face 200, 250,000 jobs lost in the next 12 months or so.
HAYDEN COOPER: The ACTU President Sharan Burrow says it's time for an intervention.
SHARAN BURROW: A stimulus package targeted at jobs you can bring on stream from day one. And that's what we need to look at now.
HAYDEN COOPER: How urgent is that need for stimulus spending?
SHARAN BURROW: It's urgent and the package needs to be aggressive. It needs to target jobs. It needs to provide income support.
HAYDEN COOPER: Sharan Burrow also wants a jobs summit with the captains of industry and Government.
SHARAN BURROW: If we get major companies, business leaders, ourselves, Government in a room and look at what can be done, it just might enable us to tackle this issue far more rapidly.
HAYDEN COOPER: But a jobs summit wouldn't change the fundamentals of the financial crisis.
SHARAN BURROW: No, but it might get consensus about what we can do.
HAYDEN COOPER: Since the middle of last year, 9,000 jobs have been cut in the mining sector. Hit hard by the slowdown in China, the mining boom appears to have reached its end.
MITCH HOOKE: No, I think Mark Twain had it pretty right when he said reports of his death were greatly exaggerated.
HAYDEN COOPER: Of course the industry itself doesn't accept that the boom has gone bust. But Mitch Hooke from the Minerals Council acknowledges the outlook is grim and he hopes the Government is taking notice.
MITCH HOOKE: The Government has got to put a much sharper and more acute focus on policy decisions that are going to impact jobs and top billing would be the emissions trading scheme followed by workplace relations and then a whole raft of regulatory, taxation and royalty regimes.
