Josh Frydenberg backs extended industrial relations rules

Employers warns more jobs will be lost unless IR flexibilities are extended to companies coming out of JobKeeper.

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg in Canberra on Thursday. Picture: Gary Ramage

Josh Frydenberg has backed ­extending emergency industrial relations changes to employers coming off JobKeeper from September, igniting anger from ­unions and Labor, which accused the Coalition of using the pandemic to leave workers permanently worse off.

But business groups strongly backed allowing companies ineligible for JobKeeper 2.0 to continue using the workplace relations exemptions that permit businesses to cut employee hours and change their duties.

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said a large number of businesses were likely to be forced to terminate employees currently working reduced hours or more flexibly if they lost access to the provisions.

To be eligible for JobKeeper 2.0, businesses will continue to need to demonstrate revenue reductions ranging from 30 to 50 per cent.

The Australian understands the government would be prepared to consider a new lower revenue-loss threshold that employers no longer on JobKeeper would need to meet before they could access the industrial relations exemptions.

Such a proposal, which is ­expected to be discussed when ­Attorney-General Christian Porter and ACTU secretary Sally McManus resume talks next week, would be designed to ­negate criticism that employers no longer struggling from the pandemic were unjustly accessing the industrial relations exemptions.

As the government has cancelled two sitting weeks of parliament, it will need to pass legisla­tion extending JobKeeper and the industrial relations exemptions when MPs resume sitting for a fortnight from August 24.

Given Labor’s position, the government is likely to require Senate crossbench support to get the industrial relations exemptions extended before they expire at the end of September.

Identifying labour market flexibility as the “first cab off the rank” for policy reform, Mr Frydenberg said on Thursday the ­industrial relations changes should continue to be available to companies coming off JobKeeper.

“Our view is that those flexibilities that apply to the employer and give them the ability to change duties, to change hours and to change the location of staff should continue, not just for those firms that meet the reapplied ­eligibility test, but should apply to those firms on JobKeeper right now,” he said.

He said Mr Porter, who is also the Industrial Relations Minister, would talk to unions and employers about the extension “because what we do know is that businesses have relied on those flexible ­labour market reforms to operate in this challenging environment”.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil said granting the industrial relations exemptions to employers ineligible for JobKeeper 2.0 was unwarranted.

“Targeted changes for businesses which have seen enough of a downturn to be eligible for JobKeeper is one thing, but there is no justification whatsoever for changing workers’ rights for business that are no longer struggling,” Ms O’Neil said.

“The union movement will protect and defend workers and their rights, especially during this pandemic, and we expect our governments to do the same.”

Opposition industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke said the government “intends to use the pandemic as an excuse to bring in extreme changes that will leave workers permanently worse off”.

He said Mr Frydenberg wanted to “give businesses sweeping powers to stand down workers, slash their hours and pay, vary their ­duties and rip away their job security — even if a business is not ­experiencing a downturn”.

“Why should a firm that has bounced back have the power to slash their workers’ hours, pay and job security at a moment’s notice,” he said.