Source: Australian Mines and Metals Association – AMMA
Resources and energy employers fear the Albanese Government’s mandatory review of the Closing Loopholes legislation – the most sweeping and interventionist changes to Australia’s workplace laws in more than 15 years – risks becoming another whitewash.
AREEA today warned this Review must not repeat the failures of the recent Secure Jobs, Better Pay assessment, which delivered little more than an academic summary of submissions while avoiding any meaningful interrogation of the Government’s extreme industrial relations agenda.
“Australia cannot afford another Claytons Review,” AREEA Chief Executive Steve Knott AM said.
“The Closing Loopholes amendments layered enormous cost, complexity and uncertainty onto employers at the exact time the nation faces collapsing productivity, weakened business investment and a highly competitive global economy.
“This Review must rigorously and transparently assess the real-world damage being done, not rubber-stamp the Government’s industrial relations ideology.”
The Closing Loopholes laws have reshaped workplace regulation across labour hire, casual employment, contracting, gig work, road transport and more. It has imposed unprecedented compliance burdens on businesses of all sizes.
AREEA says employers are now grappling with significant operational disruption, skyrocketing administrative overheads and fear of inadvertent non-compliance under a labyrinthine system.
“The Review must confront how these laws have exacerbated Australia’s already-dangerous productivity trajectory. Productivity has fallen in three of the past four quarters. Business investment is stagnating. These laws make both problems worse,” Mr Knott said.
“Any review worth its salt must examine how the Albanese Government’s IR laws are driving outcomes Australia cannot afford: higher costs, less flexibility, more disputes and declining competitiveness.”
To that end, AREEA has welcomed the appointment of former Fair Work Commissioner and Senior Member of the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Susan Booth, to lead the review.
“A practitioner with deep experience in the system is a marked improvement on academic-led reviews of the past. We expect that Ms Booth’s background positions her to run a Review that is genuine, balanced and grounded in the realities facing Australian workplaces and employers,” Mr Knott said.
“If this Review is to have any credibility, it must be independent, evidence-based and brutally honest about the consequences. Australian business and the broader economy deserve nothing less.”
ENDS
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