Governments must help people retrain and find jobs as changing technologies and global competition make jobs redundant, opposition leader Bill Shorten has said.
Addressing a lunch of Victorian business leaders on Thursday, he said that governments were “not very good at explaining to people where they fit and how we retrain them”.
“There are people who are disconnected from change, and that doesn’t mean they’re lazy, doesn’t mean they’re looking for a handout, doesn’t mean they haven’t been willing to engage in change,” Shorten told Victoria’s business community.
“What people do expect is for governments to explain to people how they fit, what’s the plan for change. We’re not very good at finding people over 60 opportunities to retrain. As change gathers pace, more and more Australians are wondering where they fit in.”
A Labor government would equip people to embrace change and remain employable by investing in education and collaborating with businesses to create opportunities for them.
Unemployment was too high, Shorten said. The number of people employed in Australia fell by 5,100 in September.
“We think technology and science is central to the task of growing our economy,” he said.
“We also see the equal treatment of women, not just as a matter of justice, we actually see it as having an economic dividend for all Australians too.
“Fiscal policy is important. But if we want to grab the growth engine, then it comes to these other features I’m talking about, our education system, our innovation system, our infrastructure, and equal treatment of women.”
Shorten also used his address to the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry business leaders lunch to appeal to small and medium businesses, saying Labor would introduce US-style measures to make it easier for them to incorporate.
“We’re proposing a new, streamlined, S-corporation registration, which declutters the red tape for small businesses and will see small businesses able to gain the advantages of limited liability and corporate structures, which makes it easier for small and medium businesses in Australia to grow faster and better,” he said.
In the US, S-corporations are companies with up to 100 shareholders, which do not pay federal income tax, and income is divided among shareholders.
“More sole traders will see the benefits of incorporating their businesses under Labor’s plan to give small businesses the benefits of incorporation – which lowers tax rates and improves liability protection,” Shorten said.
“We want to improve Australia’s current complicated and expensive arrangements with another stream of incorporation, one that provides a single, simplified structure, tailored for small business.”
Shorten’s comments follow his proposal in May to cut the tax rate for small business by 5%.
