Labor launches New Year’s Day attack on business over wages   :)
Financial Review
Jan 1, 2025

Labor has used the first day of the election year to launch an assault on business and the Coalition over workplace rules, accusing them of wanting to maximise profits and pay workers less.

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Murray Watt talked up the Albanese government’s new laws that criminalise deliberate wage theft by employers, and hit out at business and the Coalition for opposing a series of Labor’s workplace relations changes over the past two years.


Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Senator Murray Watt.

“I don’t think it’s a real surprise that employer groups want to see the maximisation of profit for their members,” Mr Watt said in a New Year’s Day radio interview on the ABC.

“[I]t’s not exactly uncommon for some of the big business groups to line up with the Coalition on wages and industrial relations reform, and we have seen  the various laws that we’ve put through that are leading to those real wage increases jointly opposed by both the Coalition under Peter Dutton and by employer groups.

“What we think as a Labor government is the workers deserve a fair crack as well.”



Business leaders, who expect to come under more political pressure before the federal election, swiftly hit back at Mr Watt’s comments.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar said it should not be an “us versus them” mindset.

“It’s a false dichotomy that he’s trying to set up,” Mr McKellar said.

“We need strong businesses making profits and productivity underpinning wages growth so it’s sustainable.

“Approaching the election, one of the problems we’ve got is a weaker private sector where profitability is going backwards, investment is not strong and productivity is stagnant.”

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said: “Force-feeding unsustainable wage increases onto businesses means the creation of less jobs, less investment, more inflation and eventually more unemployment.

“If a high school economics student can recognise this, you’d think policymakers would too.

“As we have said from the time of the dismal jobs and skills summit over two years ago, the changes that have been put in place are the antithesis of providing all of what we need to get Australia out of the economic hole we are in.

“The laws fundamentally encourage conflict, distrust and disputes.”

Employers who deliberately underpay their workers will be committing a criminal offence from January 1, potentially risking 10 years of jail time and up to a $1.65 million fine for culpable individuals. Companies will be on the hook for a $7.8 million penalty.   :)

Other industrial relations changes that Labor passed in its first term were the expansion of multi-employer bargaining, ensuring labour-hire workers used by companies such as airline Qantas and miner BHP are paid the same as direct employees, giving casuals more rights to convert to “secure” jobs, bolstering union entry rights and improving minimum conditions for gig economy workers.   :)

Council of Small Business Organisations Australia chief executive Luke Achterstraat said the government should make a New Year’s resolution to support small business through a tough regulatory and economic environment.

“Real wage growth requires more than rhetoric; it requires productivity growth and a thriving small business sector.

“Without policy settings that help rather than hinder small business, all Australians will be worse off from less competition, less jobs and lower living standards.”

Top end of town
Mr Watt’s censure was a milder criticism than Labor’s “top end of town” class warfare attacks on big business during the 2019 federal election campaign under then-opposition leader Bill Shorten in the wake of the royal commission into banks and other financial services institutions.

The earlier divisive rhetoric failed to resonate with voters, as Scott Morrison led the Coalition to a surprise election victory.

Since then, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has tried to be more conciliatory towards business and avoid personal attacks on companies when they disagreed with Labor’s workplace changes.

Corporate Australia has come under intense political pressure from all sides of politics in the past two years during high inflation.

Supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths have faced a series of parliamentary inquiries into so-called price gouging and are also embroiled in probes from the competition regulator into their pricing strategies and advertised discounts.   :)


Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney at the conglomerate’s annual meeting in October 2024, in Perth. Trevor Collens

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has pledged to introduce sector-specific divestiture powers for companies including Coles, Woolworths and Wesfarmers-owned Bunnings.

The proposed power would give the competition regulator the right to seek Federal Court approval to break up supermarkets and hardware companies that engage in anti-competitive behaviour, where divestiture was found to be in the public interest.

Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney lamented in October that “profit seems to be a dirty word”, as he accused Mr Albanese and Mr Dutton of criticising big companies only to further their political ambitions.