PM steps up battle to increase wages as business community to fight back

The Albanese’s government’s brief courtship with the big end of town has hit the skids, with traditional battle lines resurfacing over industrial relations.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Picture: Twitter/Anthony Albanese/PMO

The honeymoon may not be over yet with the electorate but the Albanese’s government’s brief courtship with the big end of town has hit the skids.

The traditional battle lines have resurfaced over industrial relations, with the business community on Monday set to unleash a national anti-government advertising campaign over multi-employer bargaining.

The contest, an argument over jobs versus wages, is aimed squarely at the Senate.

And the focal point is independent Senator David Pocock, who Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Sunday singled out as being the key to the government’s ambitions.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Martin Ollman

While Chalmers’ language was non-combative, less subtle was the contested suggestion that standing in the way of the government’s reforms would deny workers a wage rise.

Chalmers also left the door open for further amendments, including splitting the Bill, with Albanese prepared to extend parliament into December.

This suggests that the government would be prepared to accept less than what it is aiming for as long as it can claim a win before the three-month parliamentary break.

There are compelling political imperatives driving Albanese.

Having promised to pass reforms before Christmas, Albanese views the optics of delivery as critical to the longer term political agenda.

The government will also want to avoid a protracted campaign into next year from business by allowing a marshalling of the forces.

The Prime Minister has been careful with his language so far, having been vigilant in ensuring that Labor doesn’t slide back into the class war idiom.

But on Monday he will signal to the unions that he is their champion and is up for a rhetorical fight with business.

In a speech to the international trade union movement in Melbourne, in what could only be a reference to sections of the business community, Albanese described them as ideological opponents.

“Those who want to stand in the way of this progress. Those who have an ingrained ideological objection to workers being paid fairly for their contribution …” he will say.

“ … who somehow believe that the only way to grow the economy is to limit opportunity and diminish security.

“We know there are always those who say that any improvement in workers’ pay, any improvement in the status quo, will see the sky fall in.

“They say it every time. They are wrong every time. And we will push ahead like we do every time.

“We know fairness has to be fought for, we know progress has to be earned.”

While the Prime Minister has taken a consultative approach to business, having never been an advocate of demonising the engine room of the economy, he is now signalling that he is prepared to take them on.