Election 2025: Bosses urge Peter Dutton to cut work from home rights from 2027

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox says working from home provisions in the enterprise agreement covering federal public servants have ‘gone too far’.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox says WFH provisions for public servants have ‘gone too far’. Picture: Aaron Francis

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Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox has urged a Dutton government to reduce existing working from home rights for public servants from 2027 and says the Coalition would have an immediate post-election mandate to unwind rights for casuals.

Declaring the existing working from home provisions in the ­enterprise agreement covering federal public servants had “gone too far”, he said the agreement contained “essentially a work-from-home-first right, and it takes away the ability of managers, leaders to have conversations with their staff around coming into the office”.

“The right is all with the employee, there’s no right for managers. If you want to look at the public service as a business, there’s no right for the business managers to make legitimate requests of people to come in,” he said. “It comes back to the old question about productivity and the like.”

Announcing the reversal of the Coalition policy to force public servants to work from the ­office, opposition finance spokeswoman Jane Hume said this week a Dutton government would “not change existing flexible work ­arrangements, and will enshrine them in future agreements”.

But Mr Willox said the ­Coalition, if elected, should try to change the working from home provisions when the agreement expired in two years.

“We would argue that the next agreement should include the provision for proper discussion, negotiation between workforce managers and their workforce around working arrangements, which doesn’t exist now,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be flexible working entitlements and rights, and abilities within that, but it’s just the balance has got out of whack.”

He said there was a role for government to lead by example. “Working conditions and rights is another thing where we think government should take a reasonable and practical lead on these issues, and it’s gone too far,” he said.

He said a Dutton government would also have a mandate to scrap Labor’s casual employment changes given the Coalition’s commitment to reverse the changes. “We have consistently argued there was no reason to change the definition of casual and all it’s done is complicate and convolute the system,” he said.

“You have turned a simple definition into pages of stuff that employers and employees have to go through now to work out their rights and entitlements. It’s just added complexity.”

More broadly, he called for a major review of the federal workplace laws by the next government to forensically examine the legislation’s impact on employment, wages, productivity and growth.

Mr Willox said a Dutton government would not be able to repeal the multi-employer bargaining and same job, same pay laws due to a lack of Senate support.

He said a major inquiry midway through the next term would allow an “cost-benefit analysis” of the real world consequences of the workplace laws and be a platform for the next government to take to the next election in 2028.

Despite this week’s backflip, ACTU secretary Sally McManus said “given the chance, Peter Dutton will put an end to working from home in the public sector”.

“And legally the only way he can do that is to take it away from every worker,” she said. “A Dutton-led government will bow to big business pressure as they have on other workplace rights.”