Big business and unions have agreed on three big ticket items ahead of the jobs and skills summit, including a boost to paid parental leave.
The Business Council of Australia and Australian Council of Trade Unions released their shared policies on Thursday, which include the need to extend paid parental leave, reform migration skills lists and set up an authority to support the clean energy transition.
The statement, ahead of the two-day summit, came after the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, praised unions and business for reaching areas of consensus in the search for “a strong growth, high productivity, fair wage future”.
But according to a keynote address from Danielle Wood, the chief executive of the Grattan Institute, delivered on Thursday morning, Australia faces challenges shaking a decade-long “funk” between the global financial crisis and Covid, characterised by “stagnant” wages, high profits and low corporate dynamism.
Wood says a commitment to full employment, which is an objective agreed by the BCA and ACTU, would be the “single biggest” thing the summit could achieve to improve living standards.
The BCA and ACTU called to increase participation and narrow the gender pay gap, including by increasing commonwealth-funded paid parental leave to 26 weeks.
The BCA-ACTU agreement also notes a “desire to see the living standards of Australians grow” including by making bargaining laws “simpler, fairer, and more accessible”.
The BCA acknowledged the ACTU believed there was the need for new multi-employer bargaining options, but said it was “not convinced this solution is the answer to the current problems”.
The ACTU conceded agreements can replace award standards so long as they “continue to leave workers better off overall”, and agreed to “maintain but simplify” the current test.
Australia’s migration system should be rebalanced to “improve pathways to permanent residency for temporary visa holders” and use overseas skilled workers to complement not replace training, the BCA and ACTU said.
“There should be an immediate review of the skills list and the future workforce needs and stronger steps taken to prevent the exploitation of visa workers.”
The peak bodies also agreed on decarbonisation to be carefully managed for workers, communities and businesses through a National Energy Transition Authority.
The BCA chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, said: “We’re pleased to have worked with the ACTU to find common ground ahead of the summit. We don’t agree on everything but where we can find solutions, of course we should.”
The ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, said “finding solutions on skills and training, migration, women’s participation, updating our workplace laws and preparing our workforce for the future will benefit the country” – but stressed that “getting wages moving is essential”.
In her speech Wood noted that productivity growth “has slowed over the past decade” and that research shows a “reduction in the share of productivity gains passed through to workers over the past 15 years”.
Wood blamed the expansion of services, which are generally lower productivity, less technological advancement, smaller gains from education, and “greater market concentration and power”.
She called for more investment in education, and removing barriers to employment, particularly for women, including by funding childcare.
Wood warned the Australian economy is “older, fatter, and slower”, as its “biggest and most profitable firms remain largely untroubled by new competitors”.
She recommended improvements to competition laws, reducing firms’ “disproportionate access and influence” for rent-seeking, and other land taxation changes to encourage mobility.
Ahead of the summit, unions have agreed that permanent migration can rise by 40,000 to 200,000 provided the government enacts other protections and levers to encourage wage growth.
Unions have also called for workplace relations reforms to allow them to bargain with multiple employers in the same sector, a move that split employers, with the Council of Small Business Organisations of Australia in favour but the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Australian Industry Group bitterly opposed.
