The Business Council of Australia has quit the federal government’s peak advisory body on welfare, in the belief it placed insufficient priority on workforce participation and was too focused on big-spending measures.

BCA chief executive Bran Black, who was the lone business and conservative economic voice on the 14-member Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, told the government of the decision late last month, arguing the committee’s views were too divergent from those of the council, which represents the top 100 companies’ CEOs.