The work from home debate has transformed into a hot federal election issue in Australia after the Coalition flagged plans to mirror Trump’s tough stance on forcing public workers back into the office.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday championed the right to work from home and offer worker flexibility after Opposition Leader Peter Dutton suggested all public servants should be in the office full time.
Albanese also backed Labor-led research which found the average worker will be $5000 more out of pocket if they are made to commute to an office five days a week.
READ MORE: CCTV released after man shot in Melbourne
If public sector employees – of which there are 365,400 working in federal government – can no longer work from home, who does this impact?
According to analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data from the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), one in three workers will be negatively affected by a blanket return to office order.
More than 600,000 Australians work from home nationally in order to save money or avoid a commute, the ABS data shows.
If a large chunk of this widespread demographic gets back on the roads every morning and afternoon, traffic congestion will impact everyone, the ACTU said.
Meanwhile, 320,000 of these workers say they need remote work for care responsibilities.
Another one million Australian workers also report working from home in order to “catch up” on work after hours.
The ACTU said these workers will be forced to stay later at the office and will lose their “right to disconnect”.
READ MORE: Pope Francis back home after five-week hospital stay for life-threatening double pneumonia
“Working people in our outer suburbs face some of the longest and most expensive commutes,” said ACTU president Michele O’Neil.
“Forcing hundreds of thousands of workers back on the roads will mean less time with kids and more time in traffic.”
O’Neil said an order like Dutton’s proposal would “kill productivity” and disadvantage women.
“This would be an instant productivity killer, because flexible work has pushed women’s workforce participation to record highs, as one million women joined the workforce in the last four years,” O’Neil added.
READ MORE: Man hit with pole outside shop in Melbourne
Albanese yesterday said the $5000 figure was an average estimate which could be much higher for those living in capital cities such as Sydney or Melbourne.
“It makes an enormous difference… in terms of their hip pocket,” he said.
Following a mixed reaction from Dutton’s pre-election work from home policy, the opposition leader later softened his approach and said he wanted to see remote work return to “pre-COVID levels” when around 20 per cent of the workforce worked from home.
DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play.
