Event: BCA Chief Executive Bran Black interview with Laura Jayes, AM Agenda, Sky News
Speakers: AM Agenda, Host Laura Jayes; Business Council of Australia Chief Executive Bran Black
Date: 28 August 2026
Topics: Migration, Victoria’s work from home Bill
E&OE
Laura Jayes, Host: Joining me now is a Business Council chief executive, Bran Black. Bran, you see all of this in business. You see all sides of the debate here. Is there a right number, or are we arguing about the wrong thing at the moment? Is this about getting the best people where they are needed in Australia and not focusing on a number per se?
Bran Black, Chief Executive: Well, I think that that’s absolutely right, Laura. The focus that we should be having is on what are the skills that the country needs, and then working to make sure that we deliver the housing and deliver the infrastructure that supports that.
But the thing that I always remember is that if you go back to 2023, the Government released the last Intergenerational Report. What that showed very clearly was that projections are that come 2060 there’ll be a gap between government revenue and government expenditure of about $140 billion a year.
Now, the best way of solving for that gap is increasing the size of the pie. But to do that, we need people to support the projects that our country needs. And right now, one in three occupations report skills shortages. One in three, that is an extraordinary number and it’s not just as though it’s the housing sector, it’s not as though it’s infrastructure projects or renewable energy projects. It’s doctors, it’s nurses, it’s child care workers. It is, of course, plumbers, construction workers, surveyors, architects. It’s cybersecurity professionals. It’s every category of engineer that you could choose to poke a stick at.
We have skills gaps right across our economy, and as Mike was saying just a little bit before, if we want to make sure that we’ve got the scope to deliver the projects that our country needs to grow the pie, then we’ve got to have the people that enable us to do it. That’s got to be the starting point.
Laura: You met with Ben Carroll yesterday. I want to get to what he’s discussing about work from home, but it occurs to me as well as you know, we in this country debate the right to work from home, and it’s happening there in Victoria even more. Then we complain when companies look overseas and hire people to work on projects from overseas. You know, I’m talking office jobs and things like that.
Can we really blame these companies for doing that when you have this, you know, this work from home imbalance, if I can put it so inarticulately?
Bran: I think the simple fact is we are uncompetitive on any number of different settings. We’re uncompetitive on our regulation, we’re uncompetitive on our tax, and of course, that plays out in so many different ways. And we see it in real life when companies make those calls to invest overseas and to take their capital offshore.
We know, for instance, that we’ve seen Woodside invest more overseas in the United States through Louisiana. We know AirTrunk is taking $42 billion of its potential investment to India rather than in Australia. We see this now more and more and more. Companies are making the decision that it is better off to invest capital overseas than do so in Australia.
On our own analysis, the BCA’s we rank 21st of 42 developed economies that we regard as being our competitors, and the key thing is there, we’re behind all of those key countries that we compete with each and every day. So, the US, the UK New Zealand, Canada, those countries that are actively seeking our capital, we’re behind them.
Laura: Is work from home a big part of that?
Bran: We’re very concerned about that, and I can say unambiguously that the feedback that I’ve had right across my membership is that they are very, very worried about this legislation going through.
I’ve had manufacturers, I’ve had IT companies, I’ve had large financial institutions say that they will seriously consider their investment plans if this legislation in Victoria proceeds. And indeed, one company with more than 500 staff said that if this legislation goes ahead, they will move all of their Victorian operations away to another state. It’s that simple.
Laura: Well, I guess they wouldn’t be alone in that either. Does Ben Carroll get it? You met him yesterday. Do you think he gets it?
Bran: Well, he certainly heard what we’ve had to say, but the Government wants to have a reset with business. If it presses ahead with this legislation, it’s not going to get it. Now, the Premier did come with significant concessions in terms of amendments that he’s proposing, but the simple fact is that our position to him was: if you want this reset, you must ditch this Bill, and that remains the position of business groups.
It’s not as though you can amend your way out of this because it leaves a massively increased regulatory burden on businesses. It creates a lot of uncertainty.
Laura: So what were those further concessions Bran?
Bran: He made concessions, for example, in terms of the stackability of rights. He also made a concession in terms of the time frame for the legislation to commence. But as I say, the underlying principle here is that you’ve got uncertainty created through the overlap of state and federal arrangements. You’ve got constitutional issues that arise as a consequence of that. You’ve got significant practical implementation concerns that businesses would have to attend to. You’re creating a two-tier workforce for national businesses.
These are really serious concerns, and so the message that we put back to the Premier, very clearly, and the message that we continue to reiterate as business groups, is the only way you can deliver any start to a reset with business is to ditch the Bill. And in the absence of that, he won’t get a reset, he’ll get a rewind.
Laura: Bran Black, always good to talk to you. Please keep in touch with this because this is going to be one of the big issues going to the election as well because the Liberals don’t want to ditch it altogether either. They support it because they think there are a few votes in it. Bran, we’ll see you soon.
Bran: Thanks, Laura.