Over the past fortnight Kevin Rudd has continued his productivity agenda through discussions with unions and a select few business leaders. However, as focus remains on areas where Australia already performs well, such as innovation and management, AREEA CEO Steve Knott believes the Prime Minister must get his head out of the sand on the nation’s workplace relations issues.
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd’s latest media move in his ‘productivity agenda’ was to recently meet with the ACTU and a business group to discussion issues such as innovation, education, technology and management techniques.
Given Australian industry’s strong track record in these areas, such factors are clearly not overriding influences on our nation’s declining productivity and global competitiveness. That Mr Rudd and his Labor ministers continue to leave workplace relations reform off the productivity agenda shows our nation’s policymakers have their heads in the sand on the real issues.
Simply acknowledging the importance of competitiveness and productivity is not enough.
AREEA, the resource industry’s representative voice, and the wider business community have publicly agreed with the government that innovation, training and strong management are important to productivity. But the government must accept that Australia’s workplace system is also a significant part of the productivity equation.
The overwhelming evidence is that Australia’s workplace relations system is a major challenge for doing business, creating jobs and attracting investment in this country. Ongoing research by AREEA, ACCI and AiG are some recent examples of evidence that cannot continue to be ignored.
We are experiencing a transitional point in Australia’s economic management, where strong leadership and the removal of barriers to further investment could see our resource sector prolong its period of great strength decades.
However major resource industry construction projects approved before Labor’s mining and carbon taxes and Labor’s re-regulation of workplace relations are now coming to an end.
Investment is being pulled for new projects that just a short time ago would have been approved and our members are under increasing commercial pressure.
The problems in our workplace system are a significant part of this decision making, yet serious discussion about workplace policies is off the table. Our country has developed a high cost and low productivity operating environment.
In a recent letter sent to the Prime Minister on productivity, AREEA notes the World Economic Forum ranks Australia in the global top 10 on innovation, technology and corporate governance.
However we rank a dismal 42nd globally on labour efficiency.
Every workplace relations change made by Labor has focused on entrenching unions in Australian workplaces, despite representing just 13% of the private sector workforce. Such changes include:
- The union monopoly on new project agreement making;
- Union site entry laws including employer subsidies for transport and accommodation at remote and offshore projects, and opening employee lunch rooms for union recruitment activities; and
- Allowing unions to bargain and strike on an expanded range of issues, including those not related to the employment relationship, business efficiency and effectiveness.
Australia already punches above its weight on innovation, technology and education. While we should always aim higher, it is clear the biggest barrier to lifting our productivity is an increasingly regressive and inflexible workplace system.
Employers are not interested in a talkfest with a handful of union and business leaders, all dressed up for the media as a ‘pact’ or ‘agenda’.
Our members in the Australian resource industry are looking for a professional responsive government that will put its sectional interests aside and deliver the right policy mix to continue our economic and employment growth.
Be sure to review AREEA’s 2013 IR Election Scorecard to see how each political party stacks up on workplace relations.
