After promising to sack tens of thousands of public servants, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has doubled down on his culture war against workers, particularly women, by promising to end work-from-home arrangements.
Dutton said it is “common sense”, arguing that “taxpayers are working harder than ever to pay the bills and housing public servants in Canberra refusing to go to work”.
But data from the shows that last year 36% of people worked from home, down 1% since the previous year.
claimed on March 3 that “bureaucrats” had been given a “blank cheque to work from home” and were a drain on the public purse.
She cited a United States-based Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research paper which said working from home reduced productivity by about 20% and a Coalition government would force all federal public servants to return to the office five days per week, with limited exceptions.
The however, did not say that. Rather, it found that “many employers like remote work because it reduces floorspace needs, raises productivity, and lowers quits”.
It quoted from a December Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes which found that just 44% of employees say they would comply with a policy that requires working from the office full time. The rest say they would either quit immediately (14%) or start seeking a new job (41%).
that “whatever happens in the US economy over the next year, we think working from home is here to stay”.
Dutton only has a handful of policies, mostly unpopular, but he is intent on pushing a culture war — this time against women who favour work-from-home arrangements. Women make up around 57% of the public sector workforce.
He claimed that his work from office rule would not discriminate against people on the basis of gender, despite evidence to the contrary.
The (ACTU) said on March 5 that nearly 1 million more women have found work in the last four years due to a rise in people working from home.
It said work-from-home arrangements have risen from 32.1% before the pandemic to around 36.3% of workers today.
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“At the same time, more women than ever have been able to get into the workforce. This has lifted women’s workplace participation rate from 61 per cent pre-COVID to 63.5 per cent now – the highest level of working women the country has seen.”
The ACTU said a Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) report had found that, between 2019-2023, work from home jobs increased by 9 percentage points for women with young children and 4.4 percentage points for people with a disability or a health condition which made it easier to work from home.
CEDA’s analysis came from data produced by the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia.
It concluded that “the growth and acceptance of [working from home] and hybrid work have clearly helped overcome barriers that previously made it harder for these groups to participate in the labour market”.
The ACTU said the ability to work from home meant more women with young children had found work.
It also said there were higher rates of job satisfaction, a 33% decline in employee attrition due to reduced absenteeism, and better employee engagement and mental health — findings which contradict the Coalition’s claim that work-from-home policies are dragging down productivity.
ACTU President, Michele O’Neil: said working from home “has been a game changer” particularly for women.
“Having the freedom to work from home has helped a million extra women enter the workforce in the past four years, particularly working mothers, carers and people with disabilities and health conditions. This has meant less financial stress for households.”
She said in a cost of living crisis it had benefited those who face a long and expensive commute to work. “Forcing hundreds of thousands of workers back on the roads will mean less time with your kids and more time stuck in traffic.”
Dutton’s argument that productivity would rise if people worked from their office is also spurious. , led by economics professor Nicholas Bloom, found employees who work from home two days a week are just as productive.
Economic growth has also been boosted by the rise women workers. Danielle Wood, chair of the Productivity Commission told the AFR’s Business Summit recently, that the rise in women working full-time is bigger than the previous 40 years and “I don’t think we can ignore those benefits”.
Another aspect to consider, as Sydney Morning Herald DZܳԾ said on March 9, is that the “working-from-home revolution” not only are more women working, more workers, male and female, are engaged in family care alongside work.
“Working from home works,” Maley said. “The model may be in for a market correction, but it is here to stay. I suspect all sensible politicians know that, especially since they have pioneered the model themselves.”
Meanwhile, Dutton also wants to abandon workers’ “right to disconnect”, laws that require agency-hire workers to be paid the same as directly employed workers and ending multi-employer bargaining — which helps women working in female-dominated industries such as aged care and early childhood to access wage rises.