The Business Council welcomes the opportunity to respond to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations’ consultation process regarding the government’s proposed Same Job, Same Pay (SJSP) measure.

This paper responds to the parameters set out in the April 2023 Australian Government, Same Job, Same Pay consultation paper.

Key principles

Workplace reform should focus on driving enterprise, innovation, ingenuity, and job creation by removing the tensions that act as a barrier to new investment and constrain our global competitiveness.

Reforms must therefore be founded on the following principles:

• Australian workplaces must remain agile, flexible and efficient.
• Workers must have flexibility in their employment and have a greater ability to choose how they work rather than have a framework imposed upon them which may not reflect and be desired by the modern workforce.
• The workplace relations system must allow companies to adapt and innovate and remain globally competitive.
• Wage setting mechanisms must be aligned to productivity outcomes, including through voluntary and mutually empowering enterprise bargaining.
• Reforms must not remove the ability to adopt new technologies and new ways of doing businesses, particularly where they deliver improved outcomes for customers (in price, quality, service and safety), employees (in terms of flexibility, opportunity, lifestyle and pay), companies and the broader economy.
• Allow businesses to continue to respond to changing consumer demand and expectations, and have the ability to scale as required to leverage opportunities and compete globally.

You can read the full response here.