Tony Burke’s hostile relationship with corporate Australia is undermining efforts by Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers to maintain a constructive working relationship with business ahead of the 2025 election.
Burke has embraced his role as Labor’s chief headkicker, taking aim at business leaders and fast-tracking union policy demands the private sector warns will impose catastrophic impacts on productivity, economic growth, mining, construction and jobs.
From the waterfront stand-off to sweeping industrial relations changes and new rules around silica, industry chiefs believe Burke has no interest in good-faith negotiations with business.
Burke has shown a lack of leadership in strategically distancing himself from the
DP World-Maritime Union of Australia industrial dispute, which traces back to October. It’s mind-boggling that the nation’s Workplace Relations Minister took so long to meet with one of Australia’s biggest port operators.
After buckling to pressure amid claims the dispute could cost the economy $84m-a-week, Burke on Thursday met with DP World and MUA representatives.
Following the meeting, and true to form, Burke launched an extraordinary spray on DP World and told the warring parties “I have no intention of intervening”. “I’ve made clear that I have an expectation that they will reach agreement.
“I will say, I think Australians are sick to death of having highly profitable companies say everything is the fault of them having to pay their workforce the same as their competitors,” he said.
Burke’s relationship with union bosses is viewed by some insiders as a tactical move to position himself as a successor to Albanese.
The NSW Right Faction powerbroker has delivered big political wins for Labor and the unions on sweeping IR legislative changes rejected by small and big business.
The 54-year-old has been accused by business leaders of running a union-dominated agenda undermining other ministerial portfolios and government policies.
Burke, a career politician, who worked briefly as a union official and staffer, wields enormous power in government ranks as a personal friend and chief parliamentary tactician to Albanese.
Albanese’s long-leash approach exposes him to attack if crisis erupts. Peter Dutton on Thursday accused the Prime Minister of failing to pull rogue ministers into line.
“The fact is that the Prime Minister is the boss. If the Prime Minister picks the phone up to a minister and says, ‘look, I think you’re off the rails there’, or ‘I want you to concentrate on this’, or ‘I think you’re barking up the wrong tree there’, the minister takes that direction,” Dutton told 2GB.
With economic growth flatlining, cost-of-living biting and inflation still high, Albanese and Chalmers will need to re-engage bruised business chiefs, many who backed Labor’s 2022 election manifesto, or face a cashed-up private sector alliance that directly employs millions of Australians.
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