Anthony Albanese’s jobs policy must build on our employment strength

CFMEU boss John Setka will push for greater rights for workers to walk off the job on safety grounds as the union seeks to capitalise on policy changes by the Albanese government.

The unemployment rate holding firm at a nearly 50-year low of 3.5 per cent in March after a bumper 72,200 full-time jobs were added during the month, partially offset by a 19,200 fall in part-time employed, shows the resilience and underlying strength of the economy. That is a strong performance. The consensus among economists had been for a 20,000 rise in the number of employed Australians and for the jobless rate to tick up to 3.6 per cent.

At a time of other economic challenges – inflation, rising interest rates, banking crises in the US and Europe, and high state and federal budget deficits in Australia – our economic strengths should not be jeopardised. Taxpayers are not keen on paying higher tax, losing concessions on superannuation or tolerating a return to death duties, ideas floated earlier in the week by the Grattan Institute. States and the federal government have more scope than political will for spending cuts.

But with the International Monetary Fund forecasting Australia’s gross domestic product will increase by just 1.6 per cent this year and 1.7 per cent next year, there is no room for complacency. Better productivity and growth, however, would ease the scale of the budget challenge.

CFMEU boss John Setka’s push for greater rights for workers to walk off the job cannot be taken seriously. But in this economic climate the Albanese government also must be careful with its second tranche of workplace reforms in the second half of the year covering casual workers, the gig economy and labour-hire firms under the “same jobs, same pay” catch-all.

As the Business Council of Australia argues in its submission to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations consultation process, the challenge for the upcoming legislation is to ensure it does not put a handbrake on productivity because that is what delivers wage growth, as workplace editor Ewin Hannan reports.

On issues such as workforce casualisation, the case for change has not been made, the BCA argues, with casual workers comprising 21 to 25 per cent of the workforce for 30 years, recently falling to 23.5 per cent.

“At a time of global economic uncertainty, skyrocketing inflation and a global cost-of-living crisis, Australia has almost full employment and wages are beginning to strengthen,” the BCA’s submission says. “Every time we want to make a change we should ask ourselves, what are we risking?”

Casual workers, the submission argues, are an essential part of the workforce, with many workers preferring the higher rates of pay, flexibility and control that casual work offers. The right of workers to remain as casuals when offered the opportunity to become permanent workers needs to be protected, the submission says.

The BCA is right in calling for productive, inclusive, flexible and diverse workplaces that create high-wage, high-productivity jobs and a more diverse economy.

The Productivity Commission has demonstrated that 80 per cent of all wages growth has been driven by productivity improvements. In implementing its next round of workplace changes, the BCA says, the government must ensure the changes do not hinder productivity or over-regulate businesses, producing adverse flow-on effects for job creation and investment.

In the lead-up to last year’s election, Labor committed to ensuring that labour-hire workers were paid at least the same as directly engaged employees doing the same work, a measure to be legislated in the spring sitting of parliament.

In Washington on Thursday, Jim Chalmers was confident Australia would avoid a recession. But the Treasurer emphasised growing fears of a global economic “hard landing” ahead of next month’s budget. That is a good reason not to saddle the economy with the prospect of a less flexible workplace system.