Return to office order wouldn’t disadvantage women, Dutton says

An election promise to end work from home arrangements for public servants would not disadvantage women, the Coalition argues, as the party takes a suite of industrial relations policies to the election.

Federal public servants would be required to work from the office five days a week under a Coalition government, with Shadow Finance Minister Jane Hume saying the workforce had shown a “lack of respect for the work that went into earning the taxes they spend”.

“While work from home arrangements can work, in the case of the [Australian Public Service], it has become a right that is creating inefficiency,” Senator Hume said.

She said 61 per cent of public servants had reported working from home at least part of the time last year, above what was reported during the pandemic.

The promise is part of a Coalition package of workplace reforms it plans to take to the election, including unwinding Labor’s “right to disconnect” laws and reviewing laws that require agency-hire workers to be paid the same rates as directly employed workers.

The Coalition has also vowed to cut back the public service, implying it would seek to shrink the workforce by about 36,000 places.

Finance Minister Katy Gallagher launched a broadside on the Coalition, saying return to office orders would limit work opportunities for women.

“They have now said work from home is going to be cancelled … they don’t have women’s interests at heart, they don’t see it as a central economic driver of growth,” Senator Gallagher said.

“Clearly the opposition have no idea about how modern working families operate.

“Women have a right to feel at risk.”

Dutton suggests office order would only apply to those who refuse to return

Peppered with questions about whether return to office orders would disadvantage women, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton rejected the assertion.

“It doesn’t discriminate against people on the basis of gender. It is for public servants. It doesn’t have an impact, and we are not going to shy away from the fact that this is taxpayer money,” Mr Dutton said.

“I want to ensure we have an efficient public service.”

The opposition leader added for women who could not be in the office five days a week, there were “plenty of job sharing arrangements”.

He then appeared to suggest that the Coalition would only seek to force people to return to the office who had been “refusing” to do so, and there were some roles that were appropriate to work from home.

“Our desire is to get public servants who are, at the moment, refusing to go back to work … and that is not acceptable,” Mr Dutton said.

“There will be a commonsense approach as there always has been, but I am not going to tolerate a position where taxpayers are working harder than ever to pay their own bills and they’re seeing public servants in Canberra refuse to go to work.”

Mr Dutton said the gender pay gap narrowed under the previous Coalition government and would do so again under a government he led.

The Coalition’s promise comes as the federal government releases the latest data on gender pay gaps in the workforce.

The latest report found half of the employers it covered still paid men about 12 per cent more than women on average, and that women earned about $28,425 less each year on average.

Workplace Gender Equality Agency chief Mary Wooldridge said the gender pay gap was slowly improving across the Australian workforce — and that workplace flexibility was an important “enabler”.

“Workplace flexibility is an important enabler for particularly women, but for anyone who has parental and caring responsibilities to be able to balance those competing responsibilities between working and caring,” Ms Wooldridge said.

“Flexible working arrangements are quite broad, it includes working from home but it also can include job share, variable shift hours … but there is no doubt that enhanced flexible working arrangements enhances access to participation in the workforce.”