Interview with Laura Jayes, AM Agenda

18 September 2024

LAURA JAYES: All the business leaders of this country, the biggest employers, were in the room with the Prime Minister and the Treasurer last night, and they traded a few friendly blows. You could call it friendly fire. Joining me now is the Shadow Finance Minister, Jane Hume to discuss this. There were pretty dire warnings from Bran Black and other business leaders last night talking about the rhetoric out of Canberra, the chilling effect of some of this populist policy, and some of it was directed at your side of politics as well. Is business friendless in Canberra?

JANE HUME: Laura, the message from the BCA last night was pretty loud and clear that the government doesn't have an economic plan that's going to support productivity and support businesses of all sizes in Australia. There has been some noise from the BCA over the last couple of years that has suggested that they feel unfairly targeted, but unfortunately, the real issue here is that there isn't an economic agenda, a productivity agenda that's going to bring down energy prices, that's going to cut red tape and cut green tape, that's going to soften those industrial relations laws to make sure that they're fair for workers as well for employers, but and most importantly, bring down, you know, lower and simpler and fairer taxes to create an environment where businesses can do what they do best, that's deliver for their customers, deliver for their shareholders, deliver for their employees and deliver for those up and down their supply chains.

LAURA JAYES: Meantime, the Nationals are threatening things like forced divestiture.

JANE HUME: Well, in fact, the Coalition has a policy that would for those organisations in the supermarket sector that are using their market powers inappropriately that they may have to if court ordered divest of assets that would create that unfair playing field. Now that's not an anti-business policy…

LAURA JAYES: I don’t think they see it that way.

JANE HUME:Well, that's a policy that would put everybody on an even playing field.

LAURA JAYES: That’s the populist tone that some leaders are worried about, do you think?

JANE HUME: I don't think that's Bran Black's biggest concern here, or the BCA’s biggest concern here. As I said, big businesses have obligations, not just to their shareholders, but also to their customers, also to their employees and to their supply chain partners, and that's what that policy is about, but most importantly is getting the settings right to allow businesses do what they do best. That's something that the Albanese Government has clearly failed to do. The BCA are crying out now for changes to those restrictive industrial relations laws that are not encouraging businesses to grow, but in fact, they're encouraging them to shed stuff, to not take on new employees that they are restricting their productive capacity and restricting their ability to make profits which can be shared about the community. That's how you grow the economy. You grow the economy by increasing the size of pie, not cutting it up differently.

LAURA JAYES: So would you unwind the IR changes the Albanese Government has made multi-employer bargaining, and this right to disconnect, just let's start with those two.

JANE HUME: Well, certainly multi-employed bargaining was something that was called out by the Minerals Council last week as something that is causing incredible problems in their industry and making them highly inefficient. Now, we know that the mining industry is the golden goose of Australia's prosperity, and that we're something that we rely on, not just for our economic wealth, but also as inputs for some of the other things the manufacturing sector, and also the transition to renewables in the future, and they're being strangled by this multi-employer bargaining. So that's something, of course, that we would consider having a look at. The other thing that we've said that we'll do is revert back to the original definition of casual workers, because that's a restrictive policy that's affecting both employers and their ability to take new employees on, but also employees that want to be able to have that flexibility in their workplace arrangements. And finally, on the right to disconnect. This was a problem that no one had even flagged before the election. It came out of the blue. It seems like it's something that was simply on an ACTU wish list that the Albanese Government rolled over and had their tummy tickled on. It's not an issue that has ever posed a problem before, and yet, at the same time, it's also something that employers and employees tend to work out for themselves. And now employers are wrapped up in red tape and regulation that they have to sift their way through. Now, it's hard enough for big employers like we see at the BCA, but how does it go for those little employers, for those small and medium sized businesses that all of a sudden have a raft of new regulations that they have to go through without a compliance department, without in house legal counsel, without even human resources for some of them, so it's entirely unfair and disproportionately a burden on small and family businesses.

LAURA JAYES: Jane Hume, thanks so much for your time. Good to see you.

JANE HUME: Good to be with you. Laura.