PATRICIA KARVELAS, PRESENTER: Bill Shorten pledges a national anti-corruption body.

(AUDIO) BILL SHORTEN: We want to make sure that the administration of the Commonwealth is impartial and free from untoward influence. So what we are proposing would cover the judiciary, it would cover the Commonwealth public service, it would cover businesses and people who transact with the Commonwealth, including the Governor-General.

KARVELAS: Youll be hearing further details from the Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen. The PM has defended for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison following revelations that Mr Morrison tried to prevent permanent protection visas for asylum seekers.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has delivered Labors policy pitch for 2018: restore trust in Parliament and boost wages. If elected Labor would establish a National Integrity Commission modelled on the New South Wales ICAC to sniff out corruption in Parliament and the public service. And Mr Shorten also sketched out the future of Australia if stagnant wages growth is not properly tackled.

(AUDIO) BILL SHORTEN: If we dont do something about the living wage, if we dont do something about the cut to penalty rates, if we dont do something about eh gender pay gap, if we dont do something to fix up the bargaining system, were going to create two Australias. Were going to create a left behind society.

KARVELAS: Chris Bowen is the Shadow Treasurer and has been instrumental in putting together a lot of these policies.

Chris Bowen, welcome.

CHRIS BOWEN, SHADOW TREASURER: Good to be with you Patricia, happy new year.

KARVELAS: Happy new year to you too. Why do we need a federal ICAC? How much corruption is there in federal politics or the public service?

BOWEN: Well look, I havent seen any, but that doesnt mean you shouldnt have the best policy framework at your disposal. This is an idea that has been a long time coming, and we think now is the time to proceed with it. Weve had an ICAC in New South Wales for thirty years, so we havent rushed to this. But I think its very important to note that a National Integrity Commission, or a Federal ICAC if you like, will play a number of roles. Its not just about sniffing out corruption, as important as that is as you identify, its also about an educative role, its about assisting departments to reach best practice in their anti-corruption mechanisms. I dont think theres much corruption at the federal level under governments of both persuasions, but that doesnt mean that we shouldnt engage in best practice when it comes to our policy frameworks and institutions.

KARVELAS: So if systemic corruption of undue influence were to be found, who would fix it? How would it be addressed?

BOWEN: Well what a National Integrity Commission would do in the case of particular instances is refer to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but also we would see a role for the National Integrity Commission in advising departments and developing their expertise, on what policies and procedures they should have in place for anti-corruption. Thats what they do in the NSW ICAC and with similar bodies across the country. Why shouldnt there be a similar body at the federal level?

KARVELAS: What about federal political donations, former federal MPs lobbying in advocacy roles? Would the commission be able to look at those sort of issues?

BOWEN: Well, the commission would have the jurisdiction to look at commonwealth parliamentarians and their staff, and obviously that would include people who were carrying out a public role as a former MP, office holder, statutory officers, the commonwealth judiciary, and the Governor-General not that we would expect thered be much to look at for the Governor-General. So it would have a broad role, it would look at matters of serious and systemic corruption.

Now of course Patricia, the Government has with our support, set up the Independent Parliamentary Entitlements Authority, which has its own independence and its own role to play and will continue to play that role.

KARVELAS: Okay. Would this have been something that could have dealt with Sam Dastyari? That was obviously making headlines last year. This new construction commission, not construction (laughs), thats another commission, this corruption commission, would it have dealt with Sam Dastyari?

BOWEN: Well Patricia, with respect, I dont think its useful for us to go through individual cases and say would the commission have acted or not. It will have broad ranging jurisdiction with a focus on serious and systemic corruption. Importantly and Im not sure how much coverage this has got during the day, this is a very important part of what Bill announced, we would see the appointment of the Commissioner and two Deputy Commissioners as being bipartisan, needing to be approved by the Parliament. Needing bipartisan agreement as to the Commissioners.

So we see that as a very important part of what we have announced today, to get that trust and to have the public confidence, but confidence also of the political system, that we are making solid, non-partisan appointments to this very important body.

KARVELAS: I want to move onto the big economic part of the speech which is of course your area. We know that the cost of living is up. We know wages are not up, in fact I think its a massive issue for many Australians and no doubt thats partly why its been addressed by Bill Shortens speech. How are you going to fix it though?

BOWEN: Well I think Patricia, that what weve done in Opposition is outline a range of matters, the issues that we are trying to address and then outline policy solutions after that. So with housing affordability obviously we were looking at that for a long time before we announced our negative gearing policy. Bill is similarly engaging in highlighting these issues which the Government has frankly ignored. I also think theres no single solution to this. I mean this is a complex problem with a complex solution.

We have a range of policies that weve already announced, and others that we continue to develop. So for example, we will restore the penalty rates cut. Now we have a Government that seems to think the answer to low wages growth is to cut corporate tax and to cut wages through the penalty rates cut. So we dont support that, we would reverse that.

Similarly the Government wants to increase the tax on low and middle income earners. They talk about a tax cut now, but actually their policy is to increase tax. They have legislation before the parliament which would see somebody earning $60,000 a year, $300 worse off for example. Thats the Medicare Levy increase, thats their policy. We oppose that. There are 7 million people that would have a lower tax under a Labor Government than a Liberal Government.

So all of these are parts of the solution. But weve also been thinking about, Brendan OConnors been very active in talking about ending exploitations through the labour hire system. Bill was identifying other issues today which we can continue to consider in our normal deliberative way about a sensible solutions. But we are pointing out that the system isnt working as it should. For example, Bill pointed out today that 16% of people were on awards which is meant to be the safety net, meant to only cover a small number of people, 16% of people were on awards in 2012 which is not that long ago, and now 24% of people are on awards, and that determines their pay. Again these are real issues.

The Government not that long ago was telling us that we have a wages explosion on our hands which is utter fallacy. We identify a different of problems and we have a range of solutions, whether they be tax, whether they be penalty rates, whether they be the bargaining system, whether they be labour hire and casualisation. As I said, some of which weve already announced detailed policies to deal with, others which we will continue to consult.

KARVELAS: Reinvigorating enterprise agreements is part of that. So does that mean youre planning major industrial relations reform?

BOWEN: Well we are continuing to deliberate on all these matters and to consult not only with employers, unions, academics and others, business, we want to bring people together. Bills made the point that he sees this not as an us and them but a system in which we can come together to try and make improvements. I dont think that theres many people that would tell you that the system as its currently constituted is working. The Government might think that its working perfectly. We dont.

So Im not here to announced detailed bargaining or industrial relations policy, thats a matter for the Shadow Cabinet to continue to deliberate on it. But we will continue to talk to all interested groups, whether they be businesses or unions about some of those policy options. I would hope the Government would engage in a similar process.

KARVELAS: Sure but the industrial relations settings have actually been set by a previous Labor Government. It was the Gillard Governments Fair Work Act that has dictated all of this. Are you looking to amend the legislation that you actually built?

BOWEN: Well Patricia, just because something was right for 2013, or 2007 for that matter, doesnt necessarily mean its right for 2018. We continue to think about policy options. We are concerned about low wages growth. We dont think that just hoping employers will magically start paying people more is the answer. There are no easy answers here. But there are very serious policy options which need to be considered. We continue to do that work.

KARVELAS: The gender pay gap was the other one. Is that being looked after in all of your offices? Is there a gender pay gap in all of your offices? Bill Shortens? Yours? Are women getting paid the same as men? Is that something youre doing?

BOWEN: Well I imagine so. We have a number of very senior women in our Shadow Ministry staffing. Very senior women obviously right across the board, from Bills office down who would receive the same pay as their male counterparts for their role. We have senior policy advisers, female chiefs-of-staffs, which we are very proud of, who do great work.

The gender pay gap is a real issue. I've made speeches about it, there has been good work done by the Senate inquiry led by Jenny McAllister and others on the problem being that often while of course it has been a law since 1969 that women should be paid as men, women are continuing to work in lower paid fields and we are not seeing that getting any better and of course a lot of the jobs growth is in that personal services and health area which is in many instances low wages and casualised which is not and of course heavily female dominated so of course the pay gap is not getting any better.

We were told it would get better and it's not getting any better. And of course the pay gap then leads into a superannuation gap which is in some senses even worse. Too many women are retiring into poverty, not retiring into a dignified retirement because they haven't, because their career has been interrupted through family raising and being in lower paid jobs. They haven't been accumulating the same level of superannuation as their male counterparts. That is something which deeply concerns us as well and we will have more to say.

KARVELAS: I just want to get you on another key element before we go and thats the critique on private health and the way that junk policies work. The tax payers subsidies to private health insurance industry are to a tune of $6 billion. You know, Bill Shorten talked about the problems but he didn't tell us what he was going to do about them. Would you consider legislating some kind of indexation of a premium perhaps linked to a CPI?

BOWEN: Well Patricia again as I think you would acknowledge Bill made a very major policy announcement today on the National Integrity Commission and I don't think you could complain that there wasn't enough meat in his speech when he's made such a big policy announcement but he also identified private health insurance which we don't think is a system that is working for people. We make no apologies for that.

Again he is identifying the issues, similar to housing affordability and cost of living, identifying issues we are going to tackle and he will say more and we will say more about how we propose to tackle those in coming weeks. But what we have is a situation where the only person who seems to think that private health insurance is working for Australians at the moment is Greg Hunt who celebrates the fact that the increase he approved was more than wages growth and more than inflation. He seems to think that is some great achievement and right across the country you are seeing Australians who know that the health system is subsidised by the taxpayer and know that there are penalties under the tax system if you don't take out private health insurance but they don't feel they are getting the value from these big increases.

KARVELAS: Do you acccept Chris Bowen though that you've left yourself open to really a scare campaign on the private health insurance? You know you have diagnose a problem but you haven't answered what would happen and of course many people have private health insurance, they will worry very much about what the implications will be for them and the years that they have paid it.

BOWEN: Have we left ourselves open for a scare campaign? All this Government does is scare campaigns. Whether it's negative gearing, whether it's tax, whatever it is this Government revels and celebrates scare campaigns. Of course they will run a scare campaign against us on all sorts of issues. I don't care about that. I care about good policy and I appreciate the fact, I welcome the fact that Bill has today identified that this is an issue. We have a track record of announcing very detailed policies. We will continue to do that. We will do that in this space. Greg Hunt can fulminate all he likes, he can beat his chest all he likes. When we announce our policy he will have a lot less to beat his chest about but I don't doubt that he will try.

KARVELAS: Chris Bowen many thanks for your time

BOWEN: Nice to talk to you Patricia.