Event: BCA Chief Executive Bran Black interview with Emma Rebellato, ABC News Breakfast

Speakers: ABC News Breakfast, Host Emma Rebellato; Business Council of Australia Chief Executive Bran Black

Date: 26 March 2025

Topics: Federal Budget, productivity, National Licensing Scheme

E&OE

Emma Rebellato, ABC News Breakfast Host: Bran, thanks for joining us this morning.

Bran Black, Business Council Chief Executive: Thank you for having me.

Emma: Jim Chalmers has said in the past that the best kind of growth is private sector-led growth. Does this Budget encourage that?

Bran: Well, look, with this Budget, we've been pleased to see that there is support and assistance in terms of tax relief that's being provided across the country, but in terms of that metric that you've spoken to, we do think that it is a bit of a missed opportunity.

Certainly, what we were looking for was going to be an opportunity to see measures that would enable productivity, enable businesses to invest and support that type of growth. We've certainly put forward a number of key initiatives in our own advocacy in this respect, and we do think the Budget should have done more in that regard.

Emma: Bran, one of the things that's included is this non-compete clause for workers who earn less than $175,000 a year. Is this good or bad, what's your take on it?

Bran: We accept that there are sometimes challenges in terms of how you go about managing these types of issues in the workplace, but we don't think that this approach is the right approach. We think that the better approach is education, not regulation.

There's already a very sizable body of case law decided by the courts that goes to precisely what you can and can't do in different situations. The challenge with that, of course, is that it's case law, and people don't generally have access to it, so the better way of getting around that is by making sure they have access through an online service, good website, a service that they can call into and get advice. And that speaks to both the need that employers have and the need that employees have. We don't accept the proposition that the best solution in all circumstances is regulation. This is a good instance in which we can solve a problem with appropriate education.

Emma: Okay, let's talk about the National Licensing Scheme for electricians to allow them to work in different states and territories.

Will that make a difference to developers, builders, especially, you know, we've got a big program where we want to build lots of new houses. Is this going to help?

Bran: Unquestionably, so we're very pleased with this. This is one of the initiatives that I do think is a good initiative that comes out of this Budget. It speaks to a broader initiative that the Treasurer has pushed, and it speaks to an initiative that the Business Council has been advocating for for some time, and that is the National Productivity Fund.

We saw back in the 1990s and the early 2000s that a similar type of fund enabled about $60 billion in additional GDP each and every year by supporting states to undertake difficult reforms. This is an extension of that idea. What it does is it helps states come together, develop a national scheme that can be used as a basis for accreditation of electricians. We hope that this is just the first step towards national processes for accreditation across a whole series of trades, but to the point that you’ve raised on electricians specifically, we know we need an additional 30,000 electricians alone by 2030.

Emma: Bran, just one last question for you. The election is coming up very quickly now, do you think there will be anything in there from either party to help business?

Bran: Well, look, we're certainly continuing to hope that we will see initiatives and commitments that are made over the course of the coming campaign that will enable productivity growth. Our productivity, at the moment, is sitting at negative 1.2 per cent. Now that's just a figure, but that is a figure that speaks to a major national challenge that we have, and the reason why it's so important is that real wages are dependent upon productivity growth. People right now feel as though they're doing it tough because they are, real wages have gone backwards over the course of the last two years.

We want to see steps taken that enable real wages to move forward, and ultimately that's going to be dependent upon productivity growth, that depends on business investment, and for businesses to invest, we need to take the steps that are required to give them the best chance to do it, tax reform, reform of industrial relations, planning arrangements, deregulation and so forth.

Emma: Bran Black from the Business Council of Australia, thanks for joining us on News Breakfast.