Speech | NESA National Conference 2026

Zoe McKenzie MP

Shadow Cabinet Secretary

Shadow Assistant Minister for Employment and Industrial Relations

Member for Flinders

SPEECH | NATIONAL EMPLOYMENT SERVICES ASSOCIATION (NESA) NATIONAL CONFERENCE 2026

The W Hotel Brisbane

26 August 2026

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I start by recognising you in this room, the community of experts and practitioners who live and breath the daily conversation with:

• human motivation,
• self esteem,
• each individual’s personal and unique sense of purpose and passion,
• their self-belief,
• hunger and aspiration,
• and fear of failure,

As a person profoundly interested in what makes up the average Australian: I so wish I could put your collective knowledge into Claude and draw down on your wisdom daily!

I am a student of culture, and the human operating model, as someone who has studied, lived and worked in three different cultures and languages, as Michael mentioned, I know our culture change. Humanity changes.

And in this room, you have all played witness to the changes in the operating model of Australians over your combined hundreds of years of operation in employment services. I can only say, how much I envy you this level of observation and understanding that you carry with you into your daily professional and personal lives.

Were that I, or any other of my 149 colleagues on the green benches of the House of Representatives – had your wisdom. For that reason among some others, I take my place here before you with some fear and infinitely more humility: and I thank you all, profoundly, for all that you do, in building purpose and contribution, from this most raw set of fragile human emotions which you engage with each and every day.

In addition to the practitioners, I recognise the line up of significant voices you have brought to your conference, particularly from the Australian Government, including Ministers Rishworth and Plibersek, and public policy leaders from relevant Departments.

I add my thanks to National Employment Services Association and CEO Kathryn Mandla for inviting me here on behalf of the Opposition Leader to outline the Coalition’s approach to employment services and the broader sphere of industrial relations.

Today, I want to discuss some key questions of

• how do we build a labour market that gives Australians the opportunity to work,
• gives businesses the confidence to employ, and
• gives our economy the productivity to grow?

As you would know, productivity growth has been going backwards.

Last year it didn’t just slow down, it shrank by 0.5%.

That is not a one-off blip, it is below where we – as a country – have averaged for the last twenty years.

When this country’s productivity doesn’t grow, employment is not created, and wages don’t grow either.

When productivity in an economy stalls: it’s not the economists who notice it first.

It’s the employer trying to decide whether to take on another apprentice.

It’s the small business trying to work out whether a new hire is worth the risk.

This is why we have placed regulatory reform at the core of our economic plan, and the reduction of red tape, from building houses – to driving employment, central to our plan to fix the Australian economy.

Here’s how this plays out, in the place I call home, Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.

The electorate of Flinders comprises forty distinct townships. Ten or fifteen years ago, every township’s main street strip was dominated by family businesses. The husband-and-wife bakery. The independent hardware store. The local pharmacy that knew every customer’s name.

Slowly, and then not so slowly, many of those businesses have been squeezed out, not by bad luck or bad management, but by the compounding weight of licensing costs, compliance obligations, insurance, constantly changing IR laws with myriad different definitions of a ‘small business’; payroll complexity, infinite and constantly growing land taxes and fire services levies, and, increasingly, direct competition from the deep pockets of franchises who can afford the skyrocketing rent as well as online sales.

Its Blair at Cliffex Meats in Rosebud that doesn’t have a team of IR lawyers to work through compliance obligations.

Its Heath at Mullies Underwater Services that must figure out licensing costs alone.

Its Ryan at Coastal Window Furnishing who has to meet the expectations of designers and builders working their way through a 2000-page construction code.

This matters enormously to everyone single one of you in this room, because small business is where a huge share of the people you work with actually end up getting their start, particularly in regional Australia.

It’s the small employer that offers someone their very first job with no experience.

It’s the small employer who takes a punt on the young person with a patchy resume.

It’s the small employer who says yes to the mature-aged worker everyone else has already said no to.

If we keep making it harder to run a small business in this country, we are quietly closing off exactly the pathway that so much of your work depends on and where majority of you likely started your working career.

On this note I would like to briefly set out the Coalition’s principles.

Too much of this debate gets conducted as a contest of interests and ideology.

It is not lost on me that with each substantive change of government in Australia the employment services sector has been subjected to a major overhaul, as it has been again recently with the government’s announcement of a new 3-tiered service model a couple of months ago.

Our view is that we need to start from a much simpler place:

What does a fair, equitable employment and workplace relations system actually look like?

The most important principle is fairness itself.

Our system should be fair for workers, for employers, and for consumers.

Employees deserve to be paid correctly and rewarded properly for the work they do.

Businesses deserve certainty and the confidence to invest, to employ, and to grow.

The second principle is simplicity.

The underpinning workplace relations system should be simple, accessible and efficient.

Workplace laws should be easy to understand, easy to comply with, and consistently applied, not subject to different interpretations depending on which lawyer you can afford, or which version of ChatGPT you are using.

Disputes should be resolved quickly, because justice delayed is justice denied, whether that’s a worker waiting months to be paid what they’re owed or a business waiting months to know whether it can proceed with an investment decision.

Reducing unnecessary complexity isn’t a nicety: It lowers costs, it improves confidence in the system, and it lets workers and businesses spend their time and energy on productive work, rather than on navigating red tape.

I draw attention to these principles as I think the plain truth is:

When the system isn’t fair, everyone pays, through fewer jobs, weaker investment, and slower wage growth for the people the system was supposed to protect in the first place.

In recent years, the workplace relations pendulum has swung in a direction that has increased costs, reduced flexibility, and deterred exactly the investment, job creation and risk taking – of which we need more, not less.

Since the 2022 Election, the Industrial Relations landscape has undergone substantial reform.

Labor has introduced thousands of new regulations.

When I practiced in industrial relations at Corrs and then Freehills in the late 90s and early 2000s, the Workplace Relations Act was but an inch thick: It’s now a tome of roughly 2kg heft, and the better part of 10cm deep, which happily props up my second-screen and ensures I don’t get a crick neck.

The Fair Work Act, which replaced the Workplace Relations Act in 2009 was designed for a labour market built overwhelmingly around a single employer, a single job, and a relatively standard working week.

That’s not the labour market most Australians find themselves operating in today: Multiple jobs, platform work, project-based contracting, casual work that people genuinely want to stay casual, career changes at forty and fifty rather than just at twenty. None of this world of work was within the framers mind in the original Act, and every amendment since has tried to bolt new concepts onto an old frame rather than rethink the frame itself.

Every time the employment and workplace relations law gets more complex: so does every placement, every work trial, every host employer agreement you try to broker, and every conversation you have with an employer who’s nervous about taking someone on.

Therefore, both IR and employment services systems must be measured against a simple test:

Do they help more Australians secure and stay in rewarding jobs?

Under the current Albanese Government there are more than 120,000 Australians out of work.

That is 120,000 households, that are unable to pay the bills, unable to save, unable to get ahead.

I don’t say any of this from a distance. I’ve been out seeing exactly what this transition in the Australian workplace looks like in practice.

At Amazon’s Advanced Robotics Fulfillment Centre in Sydney, I saw a major employer using automation to build genuine flexibility into how its workforce operates, not to strip jobs out of the business.

At the Coles Distribution Centre in Sydney, automation has materially improved both employee flexibility and workplace health and safety outcomes.

Ten days ago I toured CSL Behring’s extraordinary new manufacturing base in Broadmeadows in Melbourne which combines automated processes with high tech and highly skilled jobs in plasma products and vaccine production.

They run a 24/7 365 day a year operation.

Last week I sat down with Telstra, who talked me through how they’ve taken a 29,000-strong workforce and moved it toward what they call AI maturity, not as an abstract target, but as a deliberate, structured process of retraining and redeployment across an enormous workforce.

These aren’t outliers. They’re a preview of the conversation every business in this country is going to have to have, at every scale, from a fulfilment centre with thousands of staff to a five-person operation on the high street.

One of the most important aspects of our system for employment and industrial relations is trust, one that it taken a fair battering in recent years, largely from the work done in this state, to investigate practices in my home state of Victoria.

Issues revealed at Queensland’s Commission of Inquiry into the CFMEU set up by the Crisafulli Government goes to the heart of whether we can trust our workplace relations system.

Years of investigative journalism led by Nick McKenzie at 9News Media, followed by the Queensland Commission, and foreseeably, in the recently announced future Royal Commission into the construction industry in Victoria, there is a real link between corruption and criminality, the CFMEU and its use of the Fair Work Act provisions and practices, and taxpayer funded projects.

Two years ago, an administrator has been appointed to the union’s construction and general division, for a period of five years. The Administrator’s powers include removing or suspending officers, declare offices vacant, conduct elections, and take disciplinary action. This was a serious use of Commonwealth power, and it needed to be.

But it’s also concerning that an organisation alleged to be so riddled with corruption is only subject to disciplinary powers with a five-year limit. There is no mechanism in that Act for longer, let alone indefinite, disciplinary action if the rot turns out to run deeper than five years can fix.

I congratulate my colleague, the Deputy Opposition Leader Jane Hume, on her Private Senator’s Bill, introduced into the Senate last week, which would remove the arbitrary five-year cap on the CFMEU Administrator’s power to disqualify officers and members.

That is the kind of practical reform we need: not simply identifying the problem, but giving the people responsible for cleaning it up the powers they actually need to do the job.

As a Victorian, not yet convinced the future Royal Commission in Victoria has the powers it needs to unearth corruption, I commend the Crisafulli Government’s extension of its Commission of Inquiry through to 2027, backed by $95 million in funding.

Together with tough action in my state, this is what is needed to rebuild trust in the industrial relations sector, and gives ALL employers in ALL industries, confidence to take risks and to ‘trust the system’.

I am impressed to see how much of your program addresses the use of Ai in employment services.

Since my election in 2022, indeed, since my very first words in the House of Representatives, I have been more than mildly obsessed with the nations of ‘tech for good, tech for bad, and tech for bloody terrible.’

In the daily debate in Canberra, the ‘bloody terrible’ aspects get plenty of airtime, so I am pleased to see how much you are focused on ‘tech for good’ here.

The Government has been talking about AI a great deal recently.

My friend (yes, we have friends on the other side), Assistant Minister Andrew Charlton – has given a string of speeches this year on what he’s called “elevating the voice of workers” in the AI era, and the Government has put out a joint statement on AI consumer safety priorities.

This week, in other fora, the Coalition will be putting forward its ideas on AI, largely as a driver of productivity, and indeed, in the development of new jobs, and new workplaces.

Some of the roles into which you currently place your clients will be substantially automated within the life of this Parliament: Others such as trades and care work, will become highly sought after domains in which the human component will be both valued and rewarded.

Similarly, technical and supervisory roles that require judgement, dexterity or human relationship, will become MORE valuable, not less.

We often forget to highlight: There are many positive dividends to the AI revolution.

It is for this exact reason that employment services should be oriented around that shift now, not in five years’ time when the disruption has already landed.

It means treating AI know-how as a basic literacy to be taught alongside reading, writing and arithmetic.

An open question exists about when and where we teach AI-proficiency.

A few years ago, I instigated an investigation into the House of Representatives Education Committee, asking, should generative AI be part of the Australian Education system?

The answer is a profound yes, but without careful planning, we will land in the situation where the Generative AI sets the tests, completes the tests and marks the tests.

Having in my state gone through a period of two-years questionable learning outcomes through couch-schooling, I do not relish another 2 – 5 – 10 years of questionable learning while the education system tries to work out how best to address GenAI.

But ignoring AI, or trying to shove the AI genie back in the bottle is not the answer.

Especially in your work, where someone who is AI-dextrous is far more likely to get a job than someone who is not. In fact, if you have any spare AI-whizzes on your books, please send them my way.

At the end of the day, AI is a technology which we, like every other market, will struggle both to regulate, control or successfully embed in a way which works for all Australians.

Ai does not knock at the door, it is here, in every workplace, and the future of work will be divided in some respects between those who know how to use it and those who don’t.

What we can do is upskill Australians, and particularly job seekers, in how AI is used and can contribute to growth.

But having complemented you on your inclusion of AI in your program, there is perhaps one challenge I would like to leave you with, to address next year: the differing education, training and employment outcomes we are seeing in the trajectories of Australian boys and men post COVID.

In April this year, the Australian newspaper published an article entitled “No Job Generation – Young men unable to work.”

It pointed out that the number of 25 – 34 year old men who say they are ‘permanently unable’ to work had increased five-fold in 20 years. Between 2000 and 2026, the number of men in this age group saying they were unable to work grew from 0.3% to 2%.

It’s a small jump, but a meaningful jump, and we are seeing similar jumps in other domains:

• Men now only make up 37% of the commencing cohort in first year university;
• Just over a third of men between 25 – 29 hold higher education qualifications whereas women make up 50.0%;
• The gap is much significant regionally — only 20% of regional males hold higher ed qualifications vs 35% of females; in regional SA/WA it’s just 12–13% for males vs 28–29% for females;
• Before school even starts, boys are behind the 8-ball: ~27–28% of boys are developmentally vulnerable on one or more domains vs ~15% of girls;
• e61 Institute data now suggests that young women now out-earn young men by ~7–8% in early-career cohorts;
• 26% of boys express uncertainty about completing Year 12.

And as a nation, we must think more about what is driving young men away from purpose and professional undertaking.

Again, this is an issue I have been pursuing through the House of Representatives Education Committee (you have to get crafty about getting things done in Opposition).

That Committee’s Inquiry into educational attainment, focusing on boys, is about to start hearing from witnesses and I encourage those of you with an interest in this topic to make a submission about what you are seeing in your sectors and regions.

While the submission date is technically closed, the Committee will continue to accept relevant submissions.

I have just come directly here from the Industry School which has grown from a single campus into six across South East Queensland, Gold Coast, Redlands, Sunshine Coast, Toowoomba, Ipswich and Brisbane.

The model is a 50/50 split between school and work, not just a work-experience bolt-on.

It’s the only school system in Queensland where students spend half the term in the classroom and half the term in work experience, work placement, training, or a school-based apprenticeship or traineeship, attending in five-week blocks throughout Years 10 to 12.

The schools were founded on the belief that young people learn best when they can see a clear connection between what they’re learning and where it can take them. I know, because I had a hand in creating it. It started as an Australian Technical College back in 2004, a policy I wrote for the 2004 election while a senior adviser to then Education Minister, Brendan Nelson.

[Need to check against information given during the tour]

Today, a small number of those ATCs still exist, here, where the original Gold Coast establishment has now stretched to six campuses, and also the St Patrick’s Technical College, in South Australia.

These schools are providing deep and relevant work experience for teenagers, who start their day with pride and enthusiasm. This diverse model seems to suit boys who have not found their feet in more traditional academic settings.

Combining work with schooling helps young women as well.

A few weeks ago I met with year 12 students at John Paul College in Frankston.

They were nothing short of breathtaking: combining part time jobs, in one student’s case – being a carer in the NDIS, with their final year at school.

We know that key predictors of disengagement from employment later in life include prior history of “no education, no employment, no training” between ages of 15 – 19, failure to complete high school, living separately from both parents, and a history of lower family education.

These young people, at John Paul College, and the Industry School are showing just what value part-time work will bring to successful study and school performance.

To conclude, if I can leave you with three things today:

First, we need to make it easier to create jobs: by backing small business, lifting productivity and reducing unnecessary regulation.

Second, we need a workplace relations system that is fair, simple and works for workers and employers alike, and build back trust in the system.

Third, we need to prepare Australians for the jobs of tomorrow: giving workers the skills and confidence to adapt to AI and making it so these skills are learnt earlier rather than later, and to build work curiosity and ethic in young people.

This is the ultimate test: can we help more Australians find work, help more businesses create jobs, and give more Australians the opportunity to get ahead?

This is what the Coalition intends to deliver and I thank you for allowing me to come here and discuss this with you today.

Thank you.

ENDS.