BCA annual dinner: Bran Black warns country is ‘losing its way’ under Labor

The heads of Australia’s biggest companies warn the country is losing its way with increasing red tape and inflexible industrial relations laws under the Albanese Government, with many CEOs now more cautious about hiring.

Bran Black, chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, which represents the country’s largest companies, said the view amongst the top CEOs was that instead of taking the big steps on the things that matter, “we are taking incremental – but noticeable – steps backwards.”

Mr Black was set to raise the concerns of big business at the BCA’s annual dinner on Tuesday night — an audience expected to include Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

“I’ve spoken to many CEOs who have said they are far more cautious about hiring after the government’s raft of recent workplace changes,” Mr Black was expected to say, according to a draft of his speech.

“It’s a belief right across our membership that we can and must do better for our future ­generations,” he said.

Mr Black also said businesses would not shy away from calling out populist policies as “red herrings” rather than the real answers politicians present them as.

He was also set to say that neither side of politics was offering the kind of bold policy reform that would set the nation up for a future with better living standards.

The industry body chief pointed to Treasury’s forecasts in the intergenerational report that government spending would outstrip revenue growth while the number of working Australians per retiree would drop significantly, saddling future generations with a heavy burden.

“But nothing — and I am being brutally honest here — nothing we have seen seriously proposed by any side of politics in recent times would significantly alter that projection,” Mr Black said.

“We’re past the opportunity for incremental steps and so the only thing that will matter is bold steps in policy.

“Now, I’m not naïve. I know these steps are challenging. Indeed, they’re painfully hard and come with electoral risk. But there are some steps that we should take, and take soon.”

Shadow finance minister Jane Hume on Sunday said the Coalition would consider other changes to industrial relations laws should it win government, including scrapping the right to disconnect and winding back the “same job, same pay” provisions for labour-hire workers.

Pushed for details about what this would mean for wages, she said: “Changing industrial relation laws from Opposition is impossible … so, of course, it would happen in government.”

Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt said that asking workers for a blank cheque would inevitably mean people’s wages would go backwards.