Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to highlight the positive changes the Albanese government has already made to growing productivity in our country, particularly in relation to competition reform, which is an important part of Labor's pro-growth, pro-productivity agenda.

Economic competition is vital for our future economic success, because it brings down the price of goods and services, it ends up with better products and innovations and it raises living standards over the long term. The last time we saw significant competition policy reform in this country was in the 1990s. And we saw the productivity and economic dividends from that. Since then, Australia has experienced a rise in market concentration and a fall in economic dynamism—both things that hurt our living standards and our productivity.

One of the ways that this has been affected is through the growth of non-compete clauses, or restraint-of-trade clauses, in employment contracts. These clauses were once reserved for highly paid executives who had access to sensitive information, for instance, or had access to client lists. But they have now proliferated through the Australian economy. Data shows that one in five Australian workers have non-compete clauses. These clauses are applied in a range of different industries. This has a chilling effect on the ability of people to move jobs. These clauses are difficult to litigate and to enforce, because their enforceability is often under question and their scope is difficult to determine. They block productive workers from changing employers and securing pay rises where appropriate.

Some research indicates that, with non-compete clauses, workers earn about four per cent less. For someone on the median wage in Australia, that's around $2,500 less per year. Across an economy that results in billions. That's why the government has introduced reforms to end non-compete clauses for those people earning under $175,000 a year. It also stops firms from using contracts to dodge competition, by cracking down on wage fixing and cracking down on no-poach agreements.