Statement attributable to Business Council Chief Executive Bran Black
Businesses and their employees should determine additional leave entitlements at the workplace level because every workplace and industry is different.
We support flexible working arrangements and entitlements, but a one-size-fits-all government mandate is the wrong approach.
We call on the Federal Government to rule it out.
With weak productivity growth, inflation rising and living standards under pressure, this proposal does nothing to address these real challenges.
Our focus at this time as a nation must be on supporting policies that lift productivity and enable sustainable wage growth for workers.
This proposal assumes businesses can simply absorb the cost of extra leave without any improvement in productivity, effectively mandating that employers fund higher costs without addressing the underlying drivers of wage growth.
Businesses operate in a fiercely competitive global market and every additional mandated cost makes Australia a less attractive place to invest and create jobs.