‘Different responsibilities that demand different approaches’: PM defends workplace regulations after big business backlash

Anthony Albanese has pushed back against accusations his government is strangling Australian businesses with red tape, telling a dinner with executives from some of the country’s biggest firms that Labor is “proudly pro-business and pro-worker.” The Prime Minister was welcomed like a fish in a sea of sharks at the Business Council of Australia’s (BCA) annual dinner in Sydney on Tuesday night, with both BCA’s chief executive and president saying the federal government was regulating businesses into the ground. Pockets of lackluster clapping broke out across the dimly lit ballroom as Mr Albanese entered the ornate hall. Despite the tense atmosphere, Mr Albanese struck a cordial tone in his address to the collective of C-suite suits, telling them he was “optimistic that government and business” could address economic challenges together. “By recognising each other’s strengths, respecting each other’s views and valuing each other’s contribution,” he said. “We have different responsibilities that demand different approaches, so it is inevitable we will have occasional differences of opinion.” The Prime Minister said that “points of disagreement have never defined or diminished” engagement between his government and the business community because Labor “serves all Australians.” “We are proudly pro-business and pro-worker,” he said. “And we don’t see this as a point of tension, we see it as a matter of logic.” Among the executives seated at the Prime Minister’s centre-set table were Atlassian’s Mike Cannon-Brookes, Commonwealth Bank’s Matt Comyn and Shell Australia’s Cecile Wake. Seated right next to Mr Albanese was BCA president Geoff Culbert, who made scathing remarks about the government in an address shortly before the Prime Minister’s speech. Mr Culbert pointed to the government’s move to cap international students as part of a plan to tighten rules in the international education sector, one of Australia’s largest biggest export markets. The proposal is broadly seen by universities as an immigration policy dressed up as an education policy. Invoking late US president Ronald Reagan, Mr Culbert said it was emblematic of the direction business in Australia is going. “Over the past two decades our university sector has built a product that is truly world-class and is now our second biggest export market behind mining and resources,” he told dinner attendees. “But rather than celebrate that success and support our most globally competitive industries we seek to slow them down. “To paraphrase Ronald Reagan the narrative for doing business in Australia cannot be, ‘If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidise it.’ “But that is the direction we’re heading.” RedBridge Group Director Simon Welsh discusses the compounding narrative that the Labor government “just isn’t doing anything” on the economy. The Business Council of Australia insists CEOs across the country are hesitant to hire and invest overseas due to Labor's industrial legislation and taxes. “Even big business are calling for this government to do more,” Mr Welsh said. “It just feeds into that narrative.” Mr Culbert’s remarks echoed comments by BCA chief executive Bran Black, who too said “many CEOs feel we are losing our way” and “taking incremental, but noticeable, steps backwards.” He said chief executives around the country had told him “they are far, far more cautious about hiring after the government’s raft of recent workplace changes.” “And this underlines the point that for a good job to be well-paid, it has to exist first,” Mr Black said. “Instead, we’re steadily increasing, not removing, regulation, making it harder to run a business.” The Coalition has vowed to repeal some of the Albanese government’s workplace changes if they win next year’s election, including the recently enforced right to disconnect. But Mr Albanese said his government understood job security and decent wages depended on businesses performing well, just as it understood productivity gains were dependent on “skilled workers and safe workplaces”. He said his government had “stood against some pretty extreme anti-business policies” emanating from the crossbench, in a thinly veiled shot at the Greens, as well as the opposition. “We’ve stood up for some of Australia’s biggest employers, when others have attacked you for holding a view different to their own,” Mr Albanese said. He went on to say there was “room for everyone’s views” in democracy, as well as an onus on those views “to stand on their merits and withstand public scrutiny.” “You have to be prepared to make the case, answer for your priorities and demonstrate how the propositions you are advancing will benefit the lives of people whose support you are seeking,” Mr Albanese said. “Because economic and social change is not delivered via ultimatum, it’s built by consensus and strengthened by the mandate of the people.” The Prime Minister said he was not at the dinner to “demand” the BCA advocate for his agenda like “many” of his predecessors. “Tonight, I encourage you: keep advancing yours,” he said. Mr Albanese’s remarks on democracy appeared to target the BCA president, who earlier warned of a “growing danger of populism.” Mr Culbert said populism was undermining “trust and respect for the institutions that lead our country”, a problem facing countries across the Western world. “I don’t think I would be alone in saying I’m concerned about the state of democracy in Western countries,” he said. “You only have to look around the world to understand what I’m talking about.” Mr Culbert said he wished he could share in the “popular thinking” that troubles seen in other parts of the world would never reach Australian shores, but that “what we’re seeing around the world provides an important lesson in how quickly unity can fragment when self-interest trumps national interest, and populism takes hold.” “Robust and respectful debate is essential,” he said. “It’s the cornerstone of functional democracies. No one would disagree with that. “But the purpose of that debate must be to come up with solutions that are in the long-term interests of the country. “We cannot let ourselves get trapped in an endless cycle of short-term thinking and blame-shifting.”