What the PM thinks about a four day work week

ABC Listen, podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.

Hi, Jules and Jez here, and every week on Not Stupid, we unpack the news of the week.

So, I think this is a really interesting junction for the church about to what extent we engage with people who are seeking spirituality but quite partial to a priest.

If that's a way in, then go for that.

Yeah, I agree with that.

You can find Not Stupid on the ABC Listen Up.

Are you keen for a four-day work week to become the norm?

That's the pitch from the Australian Council of Trade Unions, who want it added to the agenda for the Economic Reform Roundtable next week.

Now, already the Prime Minister says they have no plans to do this.

He talked in many ways about how many hours even he worked, I think.

I'm not sure.

I couldn't quite work it out.

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer have spent this morning stressing they do absolutely, definitely see eye to eye on the overall goals and the outcomes of this roundtable, which is kind of bigger than Ben-Hur.

Welcome to Politics Now.

Hi, I'm Patricia Carvelis.

And I'm Raph Ebstein from ABC Radio Melbourne.

For days, for days, we're crazy.

For days, like four days, seriously.

I mean, how long is that?

Where is that going to fly to?

Absolutely nowhere.

But we can get into that.

Well, it's already hit the wall in many ways because the Prime Minister's,

you can pour cold water and then you can get the biggest kind of fire extinguisher.

And he's just kind of...

My art had different mental imagery.

Spray painting concrete.

You know, all these people are coming up with these ideas.

It's a beautiful tropical garden with gorgeous exotic birds.

And then it is the Prime Minister's job from time to time to come along and just spray boring grey concrete all over that beautiful topic.

I think he's got many good attributes but grey sometimes can be his approach and I think he does it very deliberately so he wouldn't see it as an insult.

It's part of the strategy.

So the ACTU says it's time for a shorter work week.

Now

you might say

that doesn't seem realistic and I might say that too because I can see that from the Prime Minister's response.

But there was a time where we also maybe thought the idea of disconnecting, which is now law, right, which was a Greens idea, then adopted by the government, was a bit out there and now it's law.

It's a fascinating process.

The ACTU have a loud voice for a number of reasons, not only because they're the roof body.

They got two chairs out of two dozen in that tiny little cabinet room, right?

This is not a big, broad economic summit.

I've heard you mentioning this on the podcast.

There aren't many chairs.

The

ACTU have two of those chairs.

So when they say four-day workweek, I know there are two things that go off on ABC Radio Melbourne.

Working from home and a four-day workweek.

It is fabulously popular.

If you're the worker, not so much with the manager.

Workers outnumber managers.

And I think a lot of people, if you'd suggested, of course, something like work from home.

before the COVID lockdowns would also have loved it.

So I was very flippant, but I think it goes to the heart of the process.

The Prime Minister and the Treasurer have set this up for a reason.

They don't want to be the people flying the kites.

They don't want to be the people casting around for those ideas, but they very deliberately set the process running.

What's hard to know is what's going to stick.

Yeah, what's going to stick.

So the whole premise of this thing is dealing with, well, it's become broader economic, but fundamentally it was always about our very significant productivity issue in this country.

Now we know that's significant.

The Prime Minister has said it.

The Treasurer set up the whole roundtables based on wanting it to kick charge it,

to turbocharge it in many ways.

But now we're in this conundrum really where it's got almost more intense.

Timing is everything rap.

When the Reserve Bank governor yesterday and Brett and I talked about the rate cut, which of course, if you've got a big mortgage, any mortgage, sorry, I shouldn't say just big, but everyone's got a big mortgage.

You know, anyone who has one, they're often big.

That's the world we live in.

Look at housing prices.

If you've got one, the government wanted yesterday's headline to be

rate cut, aren't we awesome?

You've had three this year.

You're the luckiest people now.

Aren't we great?

But instead, this productivity revision in terms of the prospect and the prediction for productivity from the Reserve Bank became the biggest story.

Because it became the biggest story, it actually has really annoyed the government because it's become like, you've got this massive problem with productivity.

What are you you going to do to fix it?

And so in a really weirdo way,

or maybe very predictable way, next week's more important than ever because it's put it centrally in everyone's sort of head as a problem, not just something that we were talking about.

Like the RBA has basically said, this is not a temporary thing.

This is big.

It's like forever with us now.

There's a reason the process is there, and that's because productivity is a problem.

Productivity is hard to talk about.

Your good friend and colleague colleague and mine, Shane Wright, wrote a great thing this morning saying productivity is the reason we're not all farming our own plots and running around in hair shirts.

If we don't do more with less, then the economy doesn't grow and everything we have become accustomed to having in our lives doesn't happen.

The RBA, I think, and Shane also pointed this out, was saying that it's how many minutes you need to work.

to buy a loaf of bread.

That number's going down.

It used to be you needed eight minutes to work to buy a nice loaf of fancy Melbourne sourdough.

I like nice bread.

Now you need to work four minutes.

It doesn't matter on the like the fact is that productivity means you can do more with less.

That advantage is slowing down.

So I guess I'm just trying to take it out of that political realm and I'm grateful to Shane for giving me some of the imagery.

It's really important because without productivity, when you see things like living standards, it literally means you won't be able to, you won't be able to pass on something better to your kids.

you won't have an advantage five years down the road just if i can get to the process that they have set up two conversations have stuck with me this year when they were tossing around this idea after they'd won the election and after they just announced it two things were said to me the phrases have really stuck in my mind one is

you've got to have a process and you've got to be in charge of the process so they want a process for ideas got to have a process got to be in charge of the process so the government wants to contain it that's why they're meeting in the cabinet that's why there isn't hundreds of people.

That's why the PM gets to shoot down the balloons.

The other thing that was said to me, in contrast to that,

we want to do as much as we can as quickly as we can.

But what is the constraint there?

We want to do as much as we can.

They would love to adopt a lot of these tax ideas, a lot of these regulation ideas.

They want to do as much as they can, as quickly as they can.

How quick can they go?

Every time the trial balloon goes up, they are testing the waters.

Every time the trial balloon goes up, they want someone else to make the argument for them.

I think it is true to say we can get maybe into the relationship between the PM and Treasure.

There is a tension there.

It's what I'd call a creative tension for now.

Tensions?

So there's.

Maybe that's not the right word.

No, no, I like the word tension.

It's absolutely correct, actually.

But also, they're reported in a way that implies disunity, trouble, you know, sort of by implication.

But if you don't have that tension, really, you've got a bunch of robots who aren't contesting ideas or pushing each other.

I don't want that alternative, do you?

I don't want that alternative.

And I think we need the government are right when they say they need a process.

So just to probe what's going to happen next week a little bit further, the conversation around the stage three tax cuts, they had a

I wouldn't call it a fight, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, but there was a tension about doing the stage three tax cuts for years.

It was a well-managed tension, by all accounts.

I first reported that the Treasurer was really pushing that they do it at the, like I said, they got elected in May, at the end of that year.

So he wanted to do it straight away.

The Prime Minister, not a big fan of that.

And instead, they built a momentum around doing it, right?

And that's what this process is.

So I don't want to reduce things too much.

And I've mentioned my hair shirts, how important productivity is.

This is...

potentially, I reckon, the most important

stage they've got so far for their second term.

The The Prime Minister's won two elections and lost a referendum.

Has he made the sort of enduring change he wants to make in the economy and in our society?

No, not yet.

He hasn't made those enduring changes.

This is the launch pad for that, but we don't know how far that rocket's going to fly.

It's beautifully put and explained.

So look at some metrics.

So we're recording this in the middle of Wednesday.

We've got wages data that's come out.

The Treasurer right now on his feet with Amanda Rishworth, the Employment Minister, who's going to be on afternoon briefing a little later.

Wages have continued a 3.4% climb in the 12 months to June.

That is actually outpacing inflation and the Reserve Bank's latest forecasts.

Good for us, a political bonus for the government.

Exactly.

We've got interest rates down and unemployment still relatively low, given that's one of the consequences of the period we've just been through.

Usually unemployment goes up higher.

historically.

So these are all good metrics, but then they've got this back to the floating balloons, economy, deeper issues, persistent problematic issue with productivity.

So what do they do next week?

Well, I noticed today, because I'm a noticer, it's my job.

I noticed...

I am, my name is Patricia Carvellis.

I professionally noticed this.

I am chief noticing correspondent for the ABC.

I feel like that is kind of my job, for real.

Maybe I should do it.

It is your job.

It is your job to notice things.

So I listen to everything.

Sometimes like people like, get alive every single interview.

Like, it's tiring.

um and i was listening to the prime minister with our colleague sabra lane and i noticed a different formulation of the language and then he used it again at his press conference later about this process so more on on the same page as jim chalmers he talked about low-hanging fruit that needs to be done next week so that there will be stuff they walk out with and we'll talk about what that might be i've got some ideas that's one thing Then he talked about the budget process, May next year, budget, we all go there, we freeze, that's what we do,

and putting things through that.

And then the next term's agenda.

So the big things, the really, you know, the corporate tax cut being reformed or things that might build ahead of time.

The turnover tax.

Right.

The turnover tax cases.

Capital gains on real estate sales.

Today ruled out by the treasurer.

They've ruled out lots of things in the past.

It doesn't matter.

I agree.

But it was interesting because he doesn't want to play the rule out game and clearly decided, oh, God, I can't be bothered with this question today.

Sometimes I feel like they're like, I'll rule out because I'm sick of being asked.

And I understand why they get sick of it.

But back to some of the big ideas.

Okay, so basically three tiers of what he's creating here.

You know, the immediate next week, what could that be?

Road user charge potential.

Oh, you charge the EV drivers.

Yeah, which, which is a, that is low-hanging fruit, like more and more.

Not many of them vote.

More petrol-driven cars.

But you also need to structurally change it because we're changing what's on the ground and you need to contribute like we do through the petrol exercise, right?

Like, yeah, okay, so that's one thing.

I'm putting more money into the productivity fund that they created.

That's a big push from the business community and others, state government, so that they can try and turbocharge getting rid of a red tape.

That could all happen.

That could all be agreed to.

Obviously, the cabinet will have to sign it off.

But in terms of

a manifesto for likely possibles.

But then you've got the bigger stuff like the tax reform, which brings me to today's news.

Which is?

The Commonwealth Bank.

What's going on there?

So bank net interest margin, key sign of profitability, it's risen 2%.

So if you look at their profitability based on they give you this much on your savings, but they charge you this much on the money you take out, that is going up.

So do you see that as a sign?

Are we talking turnover tax?

Are we talking turnover tax?

That's the connection I'm making.

I think it's a fair connection.

Can we, let's do a little bit of spitballing about the two ideas.

So you're talking about low-hanging fruit, agree, and you're talking about grand ideas.

Firstly, on the low-hanging fruit.

This is third term.

I don't think the low-hanging fruit is so small.

A road user charge, economists have been dying for years to charge you for how often you use a road and how busy it is.

So there's a lot of people, especially in some sections of the media, cheering on the idea of a road user charge because electric vehicle drivers will pay it.

In the future, the heavier your car is, the more you use it, and the busier road you go on, you will pay more to use that road.

So if we go down the path of charging EV drivers a road user charge, which maybe we will, which likely we will, it will mean if you want to drive regularly on a congested road, you'll be paying more.

That's where road user charges go.

Okay.

You can construct taxes differently.

And in fact, on equity grounds, you would have to be very cognizant of the fact that people in the outer suburbs are stuck in their cars.

Agree.

And I would be, and I don't, I've lived in the, right, far away and I don't live as far away anymore.

And I would always advocate for the people who live far away, right?

Because I think a lot of us would, because that is, that is a, a, a hot mess sometimes of how much you have to commute.

So there are ways you can construct these these things.

All I'm trying to point out is that we are talking about things that people have spoken about for a long time that were always dismissed as crazy, which goes back to my mockery at the beginning of the four-day work week.

Even the idea of a road user charge, getting it on the table, getting one of them on the books is interesting.

Then to go to a turnover tax.

I am actually genuinely surprised.

No, but to have the productivity commission, it's the number one idea that comes up.

If you talk on the radio about taxation, everyone texts in and says, Apple, Netflix, just tax them on the amount of money that's sort of swishing through their coffers.

Don't charge them on profit.

So it's relegated to the idea of, and then everybody on the inside of the system in politics and policy, oh, go, you'd never do that.

The Productivity Commission is coming up with turnover tax.

To go back to my own point, to quote myself, this is exactly what the Prime Minister and the Treasurer want, right?

This is exactly what they want.

They want the not possible and the improbable to be a part of the conversation.

I hate to drop the word Overton window because because it's been overused on every podcast around the world, but the bounds of acceptable things inside political conversation needs to expand for this government to really do what they want to do.

The boundary is widening, and that's exactly what this process is doing.

So it doesn't actually matter if a road user charge happens or a turnover tax happens or a capital gains tax changes or people get lower income tax cuts or...

dare I even say it, there's a change in some way to the GST, like a GST on private school fees.

Just the fact that the boundary of the conversation is shifting, Jim Chalmers and Anthony Albanese can go, job done, tick.

That's exactly the purpose.

And they are 100% in control of that process.

So

the government is pretty much

defining the parameters, the treasurer and the prime minister managing, you know, like some tension, but like where to go, how fast, building a momentum, trying for it not to be, yeah, yeah, your point about like what you put in.

It can also become bigger than, I always use this term, but like Ben-Hur.

It can get out of control.

Yeah, that's the word.

That's really good.

It can be, it can go, it can get out of their grasp.

You fly a kite, sometimes you lose the string.

That's right.

That's possible.

And that, yeah, you can lose the string pretty easily, too.

Like the headwinds come fast, right?

Oh, let's stress.

Can we torture that metaphority feather?

No, I'm finished.

Okay.

So now

there's the opposition.

They're going.

Ted O'Brien's going.

Oh, that's good.

They should go.

I think they should go.

Peter Dutton didn't go last time when they did it.

People say, well, the business community believes it was a stitch-up with the unions back then.

They're trying to do it a bit differently this time.

Let's see.

So he'll be there.

But they have been pretty full-on in their rhetoric about tax reform and it can either be neutral or lower taxes.

So they need to articulate.

Do they?

Yeah.

I do.

Who's their audience right now?

Well, no one.

No, not no one.

Well, practically no one.

I disagree only slightly.

I'm hoping I can get your agreement.

The opposition are talking very significantly to themselves, to the people that diehard and handed out leaflets for them, and they are speaking to business groups.

I mean, let's be frank, a whole lot of people are paying a whole lot less attention to everything that we are talking about now because it's that stage of the cycle.

People don't have to vote for a few years.

That's right.

I'm not sure if the opposition...

are aware of what's going on with the Victorian Liberal Party, but as a Victorian, as someone who has watched watched state Labor dominate the entire century so far, in

most of the years in this century have been Labor years, I feel like I have seen this movie before.

There are issues that seem really appealing to the Liberal Party, that seem crucial to the very definition of who they are, and they have absolutely sweet FA to do with most voters and most of their lives.

They've been there before during the election campaign with the work from home.

I don't know if we want to get into foreign affairs right now, but their stance on Palestine is they are in a distinct minority around the world.

They might share an agenda with the American president, which is not an insignificant thing, but they are in danger of only talking to themselves, only talking to the outlets that amplify their messages.

I think they do, and they can make mistakes at this stage in the cycle, but they need to be careful about the positions they take, even on something like the economic round table.

Let's go to Palestine and Palestinian recognition, because it's a perfect place.

Now,

we're recording this in the middle of the day as people know, and then we get it out to you, you lucky things.

It's usually done by my dog work.

Is it?

Yeah, usually.

Well, that's an important thing.

You need entertainment during those days.

Do you know how much Sapphire the Golden Retriever loves the podcast?

You have it out loud.

Tell anyone.

But I walk around the park with the phone really loud.

You know the way people used to walk around with the transistor radio claps to this.

I do that sometimes so you know people think that's antisocial, but we both do it.

It's an off-leash dog park.

It's quite large.

yeah so just say I do it yeah I've got some issues myself so I'm not going to throw the first stone but right now the age and I'm assuming the City Morning Herald too but I'm looking at the age have this story I'm going to read you the first part to just talk about the way this is being positioned listed terror group Hamas has applauded the Albanese government's decision to recognize Palestine arguing the move by Australia and other Western governments has vindicated its shock October 7 attacks on Israel and committed to armed resistance.

That

is exactly what the coalition has been arguing in its rhetoric about the problem with Labor's rewarding of Hamas by

recognition.

Okay, that's just been published.

They put an exclusive on it and trying to get a big run for it.

Is that going to frame it in a difficult way for Labor?

Because the Prime Minister was was peppered with questions about the sort of

Hamas.

He's constantly being peppered.

The Palestinian Authority, you know, clearly does have issues.

It is true, in terms of being able to deliver the reforms that he has predicated the recognition.

The opposition, as we said yesterday with Brett, now saying they're going to revoke Palestinian statehood.

I think the caravans moved on.

I don't think there's no way the government's going back.

There's no way most of the world is going back.

I think the government can make a substantial argument.

We didn't rescind recognition of the government in Afghanistan or North Korea because they are run by truly, truly horrible, evil people.

I think there is a groundswell of support.

I think Ed Husick was on with you,

I can't remember the day, but he was talking about that bridge protest in Sydney, that demonstration.

That's Middle Australia.

And I do think, and I know because it's my community, the Jewish community, I know how strongly

some in the Jewish community feel about this.

A lot of people.

And the Liberal Party, yeah, absolutely.

The Liberal Party are at one with that sort of established part of the Jewish community.

Hamas is terrible.

You recognise them.

I think that's a distinct minority point of view in this country.

I don't even think the framing of Hamas, welcoming the recognition, will make any difference.

I think people completely underestimate the coordinated response that is...

being undertaken by Canada, Britain, Spain, France, Australia.

Someone like Jonathan Powell, who is a key advisor to the British Prime Minister, Keistama.

Jonathan Powell was there at the Good Friday Agreement.

He ran a private business on conflict negotiation around the world.

There's some really serious people doing some really coordinated diplomacy.

They are entirely willing to depart from Donald Trump on this and to the American political conversation.

They are completely happy to walk away from it.

So I do not see Hamas applauding Australia's move as being something that's going to change anything.

It'll churn through our question.

Of course it will.

But it won't change anything.

Of course it will.

And maybe change things at the margins, but not, I agree with you substantially.

But equally,

and I really, like, of course, Hamas is going to say this, right?

That's the other thing.

Like, yeah, they're going to try and own anything that happens.

That's the way it's a power move.

That's all I've got.

But I don't see any of that, to be honest, as anything that is going to distract the world from the path that they appear to be on.

That UN General Assembly,

when they say that, and to also point out, 77 years on, and as someone, I've been following this conflict, I think I've been reading news about this since I was about 12 with the Israel's invasion of Lebanon in the early 80s.

I never, ever thought we'd ever get to a place where Australia would, an Australian government would say they would recognize the state of Palestine.

So all that is to say just that because of the horror of everything that has happened over the last few years, things have changed dramatically.

And I think just to bring it back to the Politics Now podcast, I'm not sure the Liberal Party have yet worked out how to focus on the things that concern middle Australia, that concern the people who they need to vote for them.

And I think there's a real danger,

there's a real cheer squad around these issues on a couple of different sides and a couple of aspects of this.

It's really dangerous to get sucked in by that cheer squad and to get distracted from your central mission, which is being a centre-right party and being in opposition in this country.

I think that's right.

I just want to add before we say goodbye for the day, Donald Trump and his opinion on Australia's move to recognition, which appears to be a little more open-minded than perhaps the oppositions in this country, which is that he hasn't...

He's been very gentle about particularly Britain and Canada's moves towards recognition.

He got a bit feisty first on Canada, but then moved to away.

He's moved away.

I mean, quite apart from the very obvious thing that needs to be stated, which is that rules, conventions, diplomacy, all that stuff, none of that seems to matter now.

It's just the whims of one capricious individual in the Oval Office are all that matters, and that is not a great place.

That's a terrible place for the world to be.

I think Australia is going down a path.

I think Anthony Albanese is very determined to go down a path.

I don't think he would even say that he's tremendously...

He's not going to change what he does on something like this.

Well, he made that clear.

This is a sovereign decision.

Didn't consult Trump.

They gave Marco Rubio the heads up, obviously, which is diplomatic protocol, really, given the U.S.

is such a big player here and we're not.

But beyond that,

I can't see an immediate big impact on the relationship that we're trying to deal with.

And another indicator of that, Penny Wong said it on my show.

I mean, she's been doing lots of interviews.

The Prime Minister has said it repeatedly.

In fact, he said it today on television.

They are very willing to put Israel and breaches of international law in the same sentence.

They weren't willing to do that.

They've really increased the sort of strong language, haven't they, in relation to Netanyahu and broadly Israel's actions.

So if the argument should be or could be, oh, what does Donald Trump think about Australia's position on Palestine?

I don't think the government is...

That's not the premium.

Not that they don't think about it or talk about it, but it's not a determinant of what they do, and it's certainly not a determinant of what they say.

Final thought.

Asked about Donald Trump in a meeting, which is the kind of thing that dogs the Prime Minister.

I think he just wants to yell at at us all when we ask, but he was asked.

Interesting change again in the language that's been picked up a bit, like saying he's available at short notice.

Even the word short notice,

is he getting us ready for some short notice thing?

Is that so?

We're ready that if they say come tomorrow, that we're not weird about it, if he just leaves the country.

Do you think that's why he's using that phrase?

No, no, I have no idea.

I'm spitballing here because I don't know.

But he did use the phrase, available, short notice, to meet with Donald Trump.

As chief noticer, chief noticing correspondent for the ABC, Patricia Carnell has noticed.

That's a great bit of noticing.

That's a great bit of noticing.

Maybe that is what he's flagging.

I think he's flagging, yeah, a couple of things because I have another thought on this too.

Another thought being born right now.

I'm giving birth to it.

Here's the thought.

The thought is this.

It's also about, you know, lots of mean columns have been written about him saying he's not trying hard enough.

It's also him saying, I'm available.

Boom, boom, boom.

Yeah, that's true.

Maybe it's just a response to the commentary.

Yeah.

Also, quad meeting might not happen in India.

I won't won't get into it.

Relations between India and America not where they have been.

So maybe the meeting shifts places, shifts countries, shifts dates.

Anthony Albanese is saying he's available.

I think he also needs to just politically really nail this meeting in the next, by the end of the year.

at the very you know can't roll on and so there is sort of you feel like i just saw it as a he's usually very relaxed or he tries to seem like he is right and now there's a bit more urgency in the language.

Do you think he's texting Kevin Rudd a few times saying, hey, Kev, what's going on?

I'm sure he

looks knowing Kevin Rudd quite well, I suspect he's

appearing in the Signal app as often as possible.

That's it for politics now today.

Tomorrow I'm with Frank Kelly and Melissa Clark.

We're all joining you to talk politics again.

You can send questions to the partyroom at abc.net.au.

Ralph, thank you.

Absolute pleasure, PK.