Anthony Albanese targets care for enterprise bargaining reforms

Anthony Albanese has signalled the key beneficiaries of his proposed reforms to enterprise bargaining will be women in aged care, child care and disability care.

Anthony Albanese in question time on Wednesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Anthony Albanese has signalled the key beneficiaries of his proposed reforms to enterprise bargaining will be workers in feminised industries including women in aged care, child care and disability care.

Labelling these workers the “heroes of the pandemic” in a speech to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia on Thursday morning, the Prime Minister will argue that a better bargaining system will drive wages growth and tackle rising living costs as he comes under pressure following a fifth consecutive official cash rate increase.

He will also argue that the benefits presented by new technologies could be as transformational as the Hawke and Keating economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, warning that action is needed now to avoid the risk of rivals gaining a competitive advantage over Australia.

In an advance copy of his speech to the CEDA State of the Nation conference in Parliament House, Mr Albanese says Australia needs to translate its successful track record on innovation into delivering more hi-tech manufacturing jobs.

“We don’t want to find ourselves in a situation where at the same time as the world is becoming more and more reliant on renewable energy technology, that technology is becoming more and more concentrated in the hands of one country,” he will say. “Eighty-five per cent of the world’s solar panels are made in one country. If nothing changes over the next decade, this will rise to 95 per cent.”

Mr Albanese elevates “economic self-reliance” as a key goal of his government.

“I want Australia to be so much more than the last link in the global supply chain, or the springboard for an idea that makes another nation rich. My vision is for a country that makes things here again,” he will say.

Mr Albanese also gives one of the strongest signals yet that his proposed enterprise bargaining reforms are predominantly aimed at low-paid women working in the provision of care for vulnerable Australians.

Labor has been under pressure to identify the sectors to which it intends to apply its proposal for multi-employer bargaining amid concern from some business groups and the Coalition that the proposal could enhance union power and lead to widespread industrial action.

Mr Albanese will say that workforces with the most women are the “ones with the least bargaining power and, as a result, the lowest pay”.

“The Australians doing these jobs are among the best of us, but they are getting the worst of the deal,” he will say. “Whenever we talk about closing the gender pay gap, we should acknowledge that getting bargaining back on track is central to the task.

“Industry, small business and big employers will all benefit from a bargaining framework that’s more flexible, more straightforward and more attuned to the realities of work in Australia in the 2020s.”

The government faced pressure at last week’s jobs summit to bring forward its childcare reforms and improve paid parental leave, as ­unions, industry and Labor premiers pushed for the overhaul of the sector to be expedited. But Mr Albanese has stood by the July 1, 2023, start date.