Coalition split as Jim Chalmers pans ACTU

Jim Chalmers has distanced the government from ACTU proposals to overhaul the Reserve Bank and raise taxes.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Picture: Getty Images

Jim Chalmers has distanced the government from ACTU proposals to overhaul the Reserve Bank and raise taxes, as the Coalition split over the September jobs summit, with Nationals Leader David Littleproud accepting an invitation to attend after it was rejected by Peter Dutton.

The Treasurer said “not every idea that’s pitched up will be progressed” at next month’s jobs and skills summit after the peak union body in a policy paper ahead of the two-day conference argued in favour of introducing a special inflation levy on companies and scrapping the stage three personal income tax cuts.

As business groups pilloried the ACTU’s proposals, Dr Chalmers told The Australian he welcomed ideas from all interested parties but not every suggestion would get taken up.

“Whether it’s business or unions or others, we want participants from all sides to be making suggestions in the lead-up to the summit, and we will bring our own ideas as well,” he said. “We aren’t looking for ­unanimity on every suggestion, we are looking for broad consensus on the ways forward, and that inevitably means not every idea that’s pitched up will be progressed.”

While Dr Chalmers said the government wanted to “genuinely address the economic challenges we face in a collaborative and constructive way”, the Opposition Leader rejected an invitation to attend. Branding it a “talk fest for the union movement”, Mr Dutton told 2GB radio he refused to attend a summit that included “the thugs and grubs from the CFMEU”.

“What they’re talking about doing is unwinding the industrial relations back to a period probably similar to what we had in the 1980s. Now you’ll see a massive spike in strikes – you’re seeing it on the ports at the moment where it’s difficult to get medicines in because the tugboat operators are going on strike,” he said.

Dr Chalmers said “the success of the jobs and skills summit does not rely on his (Mr Dutton’s) participation … I think the whole country and certainly the Albanese government is trying to build consensus, and Peter Dutton is trying to wreck it.”

Despite the Liberal leader’s vitriol towards the summit, a spokesman for Mr Littleproud said he would accept an invitation extended to him by Dr Chalmers on Wednesday.

Amid an increasingly heated political debate ahead of the summit, the ACTU paper said “full and secure employment” should be the government’s top macro­economic goal. It argued that government should consider an “excess profits levy on companies enjoying windfall profits as a result of current inflation”. Unions also backed cancelling the stage three tax cuts, which they said benefit only higher-­income households and would exacerbate inflationary pressures.

The ACTU accused the RBA of being willing to “throw hundreds of thousands of people out of work” to get inflation in line with its ­targets.

Employers criticised the union tax proposals as ill-­conceived and incredibly complex, saying the goal of the summit had to be about finding common ground.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said while employers shared the ACTU’s objective of maintaining full employment, business wanted further measures to increase workforce participation. “At the same time, we have concerns with some of the ACTU’s proposals for restricting work contracts in the name of ‘job security’,” he said.

He also said the ACTU’s tax proposals to address the current surge in inflation were “unlikely to hold up to scrutiny”.

Business Council chief executive Jennifer Westacott said the goal of the summit had to be about “common ground”, and while employers were ready to work with the ACTU, “that doesn’t mean we will agree on everything”. “It is only thriving businesses that can deliver on our shared ambition for a higher-wage economy,” she said.