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The Australian Government’s business-friendly employment response to COVID-19: A critical discourse analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Patrick O’Keeffe Open the ORCID record for Patrick O’Keeffe [Opens in a new window]  and
Angelika Papadopoulos
Patrick O’Keeffe*
Affiliation:
RMIT University, Australia
Angelika Papadopoulos
Affiliation:
RMIT University, Australia
*
Patrick O’Keeffe, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Swanston Street, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia. Email: patrick.okeeffe@rmit.edu.au
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Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has created economic crises and considerable loss of employment throughout the world. In the Australian context, social distancing restrictions and business closures contributed to a dramatic increase in unemployment, with 780,000 people losing work within weeks of the first COVID-19 outbreaks. Job losses were concentrated in casualised industries such as retail, recreation, arts and culture, hospitality, and accommodation. We examine policy discourses framing independent work, entrepreneurial workers and flexible work relations as essential for ‘economic recovery’, where this means business flexibility, productivity and future economic prosperity. We draw on these framings to show how the equation of flexible work relations and productivity underpins the Australian Government’s response to unemployment caused by the pandemic, as reflected in policy announcements and proposed changes to industrial relations law. In these proposals, constructions of ‘job creation’ and ‘economic recovery’ rationalise industrial relations changes that further empower business, through conflating public and business interest. At the same time, ensuing labour market deregulation and the changing profile of business renders the very idea of ‘jobs’ tendentious.

Keywords

J08J28J31J38CasualisationCOVID-19deregulationgig economygig workindependent workindustrial relationslabourprecarious work
Type
Rethinking work organisation and labour relations
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , September 2021 , pp. 453 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2021

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