Australians insane savings from key working trend
Australian workers will continue to work from home, although not as much as some would like, as the insane amount they are saving comes to light.
Fresh figures released by Deloitte Access Economics shows the average Australian worker could save $5308 a year by taking out transportation and fuel costs.
It is also having the added benefit of having a happier workforce, which is reducing turnover for employers, the report said.
It also said the tug of war between employees wanting to be able to work from home and employers wanting them to be in the office more often appears to have ended for now, with 80 per cent believing WFH would remain fro at least the next two years.
Deloitte Access economics partner and lead author David Rumbens told NewsWire employers are meeting employees in the middle, focusing on hybrid working models.
'There has been this tension as employees have preferences working from home because it saves on travel costs and time,' Mr Rumbens said.
'There is certainly a body of thinking that collaboration in person aids productivity and innovation, hence, where there is flexible work there is encouragement of some time collaborating and working together.
'We are now seeing a lot of organisations in the white collar and professional space settling on a hybrid mix allowing for those benefits of teaming and proximity.'
These balances come as the overall strength of the workforce shows the employment rate remains at a near record low of 4.1 per cent, with 390,000 more Australians finding work over the last 12-months.
In April alone the employment rate surged by 89,000 people, but it's not all good news for workers.
'The overall strength of the labour market has masked the relative strength of non-market sector employment compared to the market sector,' Mr Rumbens said.
'In the year to the December quarter of 2024, the non-market sector (health care, education, public administration) accounted for approximately 80 per cent of total employment gains.'
Australia's Cash Rate 2022
Productivity lags remains the key threat to living standards
Deloitte said with inflation moderating, wages ticking up and interest rates ticking down, there could be further boosts to jobs if it wasn't for the 'abysmal' productivity performance.
'Australian labour productivity has fallen considerably over the past three years,' he said.
'Since its peak in March 2022, Australia's labour productivity has fallen by 5.7 per cent and labour productivity in the non-market sector now sits at a near 20-year low, underscoring why boosting productivity growth should be a top priority for the government.'
Mr Rumbens said if this continues to fall over a number of years, Australian workers will eventually see a fall in living standards.
'We want productivity gains so we can get sustainable real wage growth.
'The risk if we don't have productivity all the nice wage growth goes back into price growth and we're effectively no better off.
'So it becomes really important to drive living standards and the ability to sustainably actually generate real wage growth over time.'
Mr Rumbens said Australians just experienced a real cost of living crisis over the last two years, going through a per capita recession which could return if productivity doesn't improve.
'It could be that it means inflation rises again.
'While the Reserve Bank is cutting rates and experts expect it to continue but none of that is guaranteed.
'So if productivity goes backwards, then prices will go up and hence you go back into a cost-of-living spiral, which workers have just been through.
'They got reasonable wage growth but price growth was much more, so they ended up being poorer over the last, effectively, three years.
Despite the risks Mr Rumbens said workers could over time help solve the problem.
'We've seen from the Treasurer, the agenda for the second term of government will be productivity focused without forgetting about cost of living.
'Part of that is encouraging technology use, encouraging innovation by private businesses.
'Skills need to evolve as well. In many cases there needs to be a skill or knowledge boost that goes along side the technology boost.
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The Advertiser
an hour ago
- The Advertiser
The billion-dollar industry with scant consumer protections
Virtually every man, woman and teenager has a mobile phone. Ninety-eight per cent of adults use mobile phones for calls. Behind your phone service is a multibillion-dollar industry critical to education, health, business, leisure, civic life and - in an emergency - life and death. But can we trust our telco providers? And as consumers what protections can we rely upon? Late last month deeply concerning allegations were levelled at Telstra by rival telco TPG/Vodafone which yet again raised red flags about the trust consumers can place in telcos. TPG claims that Telstra - which is Australia's largest telco by some margin - has misled consumers by making false claims about the size of its mobile network in its advertising, website content, annual reports and other sales material. Australians take note of claims made by telcos about their network size, network reliability and network performance in deciding their mobile provider. They do so on the presumption that telcos are honest with this information. Many Australians, particularly in regional and remote areas, sign up for more expensive plans with Telstra because they believe it's the only option for reliable coverage. If these latest allegations are true - and the coverage advantage is not as big as people have been led to believe - regional consumers could be forgiven for feeling betrayed. When consumers are misled, markets are distorted, and trust is eroded. That is why these latest allegations are so serious and should be investigated by the ACCC. Of course, the latest allegations are not the only indication that our trust in the major telcos is brittle. New research undertaken by Essential Media shows that 41 per cent of consumers have limited faith in their telco to act in their best interest -and almost a third said the coverage they received didn't match what they were led to expect. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has recently identified a spike in complaints, including those for poor sales conduct - misleading and high-pressure tactics - as the most common systemic issue it investigates. In parallel, credit assessments in the telco sector remain inconsistent and inadequate. Complaints to the Ombudsman about poor credit checks increased by over 30 per cent in the past financial year, with financial counsellors reporting that many of their clients are routinely signed onto contracts they simply cannot afford. These concerns are not academic, they have a real-world impact everyday for Australians. The fact that we cannot rely on what telcos tell us about their coverage is why ACCAN supports the Government's National Audit of Mobile Coverage, which is gathering real-world data through 180,000 kilometres of on-the-ground testing each year. This information is important as it could help to build an independent coverage map, a key recommendation of the recent Regional Telecommunications Review, giving Australians accurate, unbiased insight into where they can expect service. But independent mapping will not fix all the problems with the nation's major telecommunications carriers. The fact is there is precious little to protect telecommunications consumers. The telecommunications industry itself develops the TCP Code (the sector's consumer protections rulebook) and is required to conduct a review every five years. The TCP Code already offers inadequate consumer protections and is not underpinned by effective compliance, enforcement and penalty arrangements. There are countless examples of consumer harm from this weak regulation. In May, ACCAN voted "no" in a ballot of the TCP Code Review Committee- of which we are a part - on the question of whether the draft Code should be sent to the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority for consideration. Despite this, and despite 22 other consumer groups already walking away from the industry led code process, the ballot was carried. The revised Code has now been submitted to the ACMA for potential registration - a process that raises significant questions about whether the proposed updates meet community needs. Domestic, family and sexual violence and financial hardship have been taken out of the TCP Code, replaced with direct regulation in the last 18 months. This is a recognition of the critical nature of the problems, and the inadequacy of the code system. The current TCP Code fails to provide adequate consumer protections in two critical areas: irresponsible sales and inadequate credit assessments. These gaps result in thousands of Australians being sold plans they can't afford, don't understand, or never needed in the first place. These harms are exacerbated by sales incentive structures that reward telco staff for maximising sales volume and value - an eerily similar model to that called out and reformed in the financial services sector following the banking royal commission. Despite months of consultation, the final version of the draft Code submitted to the ACMA has not meaningfully strengthened these protections. The sales clauses still allow commission-based incentives and fail to impose clear duties to ensure affordability or product suitability. We are concerned that proposals in the Telecommunications (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025 before parliament to make code compliance mandatory will not fully solve the problem - because the issue lies in the content of the industry-led code. The Ombudsman, the ACMA and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have all criticised the process in which the industry is in charge of writing the nation's telecommunications protections. ACCAN has now joined the 22 consumer groups fed up with weak telecommunications regulation in the Fair Call Coalition. The answer is simple: new Minister for Communications, Anika Wells must reject the farcical process by which the industry (Communications Alliance) writes the nation's primary consumer protection code for telecommunications - and apply robust and enforceable rules in key areas of consumer harm. Consumers deserve and demand appropriate protections - and will be closely watching the leadership brought to bear by the federal government and the regulator to ensure their safety. Virtually every man, woman and teenager has a mobile phone. Ninety-eight per cent of adults use mobile phones for calls. Behind your phone service is a multibillion-dollar industry critical to education, health, business, leisure, civic life and - in an emergency - life and death. But can we trust our telco providers? And as consumers what protections can we rely upon? Late last month deeply concerning allegations were levelled at Telstra by rival telco TPG/Vodafone which yet again raised red flags about the trust consumers can place in telcos. TPG claims that Telstra - which is Australia's largest telco by some margin - has misled consumers by making false claims about the size of its mobile network in its advertising, website content, annual reports and other sales material. Australians take note of claims made by telcos about their network size, network reliability and network performance in deciding their mobile provider. They do so on the presumption that telcos are honest with this information. Many Australians, particularly in regional and remote areas, sign up for more expensive plans with Telstra because they believe it's the only option for reliable coverage. If these latest allegations are true - and the coverage advantage is not as big as people have been led to believe - regional consumers could be forgiven for feeling betrayed. When consumers are misled, markets are distorted, and trust is eroded. That is why these latest allegations are so serious and should be investigated by the ACCC. Of course, the latest allegations are not the only indication that our trust in the major telcos is brittle. New research undertaken by Essential Media shows that 41 per cent of consumers have limited faith in their telco to act in their best interest -and almost a third said the coverage they received didn't match what they were led to expect. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has recently identified a spike in complaints, including those for poor sales conduct - misleading and high-pressure tactics - as the most common systemic issue it investigates. In parallel, credit assessments in the telco sector remain inconsistent and inadequate. Complaints to the Ombudsman about poor credit checks increased by over 30 per cent in the past financial year, with financial counsellors reporting that many of their clients are routinely signed onto contracts they simply cannot afford. These concerns are not academic, they have a real-world impact everyday for Australians. The fact that we cannot rely on what telcos tell us about their coverage is why ACCAN supports the Government's National Audit of Mobile Coverage, which is gathering real-world data through 180,000 kilometres of on-the-ground testing each year. This information is important as it could help to build an independent coverage map, a key recommendation of the recent Regional Telecommunications Review, giving Australians accurate, unbiased insight into where they can expect service. But independent mapping will not fix all the problems with the nation's major telecommunications carriers. The fact is there is precious little to protect telecommunications consumers. The telecommunications industry itself develops the TCP Code (the sector's consumer protections rulebook) and is required to conduct a review every five years. The TCP Code already offers inadequate consumer protections and is not underpinned by effective compliance, enforcement and penalty arrangements. There are countless examples of consumer harm from this weak regulation. In May, ACCAN voted "no" in a ballot of the TCP Code Review Committee- of which we are a part - on the question of whether the draft Code should be sent to the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority for consideration. Despite this, and despite 22 other consumer groups already walking away from the industry led code process, the ballot was carried. The revised Code has now been submitted to the ACMA for potential registration - a process that raises significant questions about whether the proposed updates meet community needs. Domestic, family and sexual violence and financial hardship have been taken out of the TCP Code, replaced with direct regulation in the last 18 months. This is a recognition of the critical nature of the problems, and the inadequacy of the code system. The current TCP Code fails to provide adequate consumer protections in two critical areas: irresponsible sales and inadequate credit assessments. These gaps result in thousands of Australians being sold plans they can't afford, don't understand, or never needed in the first place. These harms are exacerbated by sales incentive structures that reward telco staff for maximising sales volume and value - an eerily similar model to that called out and reformed in the financial services sector following the banking royal commission. Despite months of consultation, the final version of the draft Code submitted to the ACMA has not meaningfully strengthened these protections. The sales clauses still allow commission-based incentives and fail to impose clear duties to ensure affordability or product suitability. We are concerned that proposals in the Telecommunications (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025 before parliament to make code compliance mandatory will not fully solve the problem - because the issue lies in the content of the industry-led code. The Ombudsman, the ACMA and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have all criticised the process in which the industry is in charge of writing the nation's telecommunications protections. ACCAN has now joined the 22 consumer groups fed up with weak telecommunications regulation in the Fair Call Coalition. The answer is simple: new Minister for Communications, Anika Wells must reject the farcical process by which the industry (Communications Alliance) writes the nation's primary consumer protection code for telecommunications - and apply robust and enforceable rules in key areas of consumer harm. Consumers deserve and demand appropriate protections - and will be closely watching the leadership brought to bear by the federal government and the regulator to ensure their safety. Virtually every man, woman and teenager has a mobile phone. Ninety-eight per cent of adults use mobile phones for calls. Behind your phone service is a multibillion-dollar industry critical to education, health, business, leisure, civic life and - in an emergency - life and death. But can we trust our telco providers? And as consumers what protections can we rely upon? Late last month deeply concerning allegations were levelled at Telstra by rival telco TPG/Vodafone which yet again raised red flags about the trust consumers can place in telcos. TPG claims that Telstra - which is Australia's largest telco by some margin - has misled consumers by making false claims about the size of its mobile network in its advertising, website content, annual reports and other sales material. Australians take note of claims made by telcos about their network size, network reliability and network performance in deciding their mobile provider. They do so on the presumption that telcos are honest with this information. Many Australians, particularly in regional and remote areas, sign up for more expensive plans with Telstra because they believe it's the only option for reliable coverage. If these latest allegations are true - and the coverage advantage is not as big as people have been led to believe - regional consumers could be forgiven for feeling betrayed. When consumers are misled, markets are distorted, and trust is eroded. That is why these latest allegations are so serious and should be investigated by the ACCC. Of course, the latest allegations are not the only indication that our trust in the major telcos is brittle. New research undertaken by Essential Media shows that 41 per cent of consumers have limited faith in their telco to act in their best interest -and almost a third said the coverage they received didn't match what they were led to expect. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has recently identified a spike in complaints, including those for poor sales conduct - misleading and high-pressure tactics - as the most common systemic issue it investigates. In parallel, credit assessments in the telco sector remain inconsistent and inadequate. Complaints to the Ombudsman about poor credit checks increased by over 30 per cent in the past financial year, with financial counsellors reporting that many of their clients are routinely signed onto contracts they simply cannot afford. These concerns are not academic, they have a real-world impact everyday for Australians. The fact that we cannot rely on what telcos tell us about their coverage is why ACCAN supports the Government's National Audit of Mobile Coverage, which is gathering real-world data through 180,000 kilometres of on-the-ground testing each year. This information is important as it could help to build an independent coverage map, a key recommendation of the recent Regional Telecommunications Review, giving Australians accurate, unbiased insight into where they can expect service. But independent mapping will not fix all the problems with the nation's major telecommunications carriers. The fact is there is precious little to protect telecommunications consumers. The telecommunications industry itself develops the TCP Code (the sector's consumer protections rulebook) and is required to conduct a review every five years. The TCP Code already offers inadequate consumer protections and is not underpinned by effective compliance, enforcement and penalty arrangements. There are countless examples of consumer harm from this weak regulation. In May, ACCAN voted "no" in a ballot of the TCP Code Review Committee- of which we are a part - on the question of whether the draft Code should be sent to the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority for consideration. Despite this, and despite 22 other consumer groups already walking away from the industry led code process, the ballot was carried. The revised Code has now been submitted to the ACMA for potential registration - a process that raises significant questions about whether the proposed updates meet community needs. Domestic, family and sexual violence and financial hardship have been taken out of the TCP Code, replaced with direct regulation in the last 18 months. This is a recognition of the critical nature of the problems, and the inadequacy of the code system. The current TCP Code fails to provide adequate consumer protections in two critical areas: irresponsible sales and inadequate credit assessments. These gaps result in thousands of Australians being sold plans they can't afford, don't understand, or never needed in the first place. These harms are exacerbated by sales incentive structures that reward telco staff for maximising sales volume and value - an eerily similar model to that called out and reformed in the financial services sector following the banking royal commission. Despite months of consultation, the final version of the draft Code submitted to the ACMA has not meaningfully strengthened these protections. The sales clauses still allow commission-based incentives and fail to impose clear duties to ensure affordability or product suitability. We are concerned that proposals in the Telecommunications (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025 before parliament to make code compliance mandatory will not fully solve the problem - because the issue lies in the content of the industry-led code. The Ombudsman, the ACMA and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have all criticised the process in which the industry is in charge of writing the nation's telecommunications protections. ACCAN has now joined the 22 consumer groups fed up with weak telecommunications regulation in the Fair Call Coalition. The answer is simple: new Minister for Communications, Anika Wells must reject the farcical process by which the industry (Communications Alliance) writes the nation's primary consumer protection code for telecommunications - and apply robust and enforceable rules in key areas of consumer harm. Consumers deserve and demand appropriate protections - and will be closely watching the leadership brought to bear by the federal government and the regulator to ensure their safety. Virtually every man, woman and teenager has a mobile phone. Ninety-eight per cent of adults use mobile phones for calls. Behind your phone service is a multibillion-dollar industry critical to education, health, business, leisure, civic life and - in an emergency - life and death. But can we trust our telco providers? And as consumers what protections can we rely upon? Late last month deeply concerning allegations were levelled at Telstra by rival telco TPG/Vodafone which yet again raised red flags about the trust consumers can place in telcos. TPG claims that Telstra - which is Australia's largest telco by some margin - has misled consumers by making false claims about the size of its mobile network in its advertising, website content, annual reports and other sales material. Australians take note of claims made by telcos about their network size, network reliability and network performance in deciding their mobile provider. They do so on the presumption that telcos are honest with this information. Many Australians, particularly in regional and remote areas, sign up for more expensive plans with Telstra because they believe it's the only option for reliable coverage. If these latest allegations are true - and the coverage advantage is not as big as people have been led to believe - regional consumers could be forgiven for feeling betrayed. When consumers are misled, markets are distorted, and trust is eroded. That is why these latest allegations are so serious and should be investigated by the ACCC. Of course, the latest allegations are not the only indication that our trust in the major telcos is brittle. New research undertaken by Essential Media shows that 41 per cent of consumers have limited faith in their telco to act in their best interest -and almost a third said the coverage they received didn't match what they were led to expect. The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman has recently identified a spike in complaints, including those for poor sales conduct - misleading and high-pressure tactics - as the most common systemic issue it investigates. In parallel, credit assessments in the telco sector remain inconsistent and inadequate. Complaints to the Ombudsman about poor credit checks increased by over 30 per cent in the past financial year, with financial counsellors reporting that many of their clients are routinely signed onto contracts they simply cannot afford. These concerns are not academic, they have a real-world impact everyday for Australians. The fact that we cannot rely on what telcos tell us about their coverage is why ACCAN supports the Government's National Audit of Mobile Coverage, which is gathering real-world data through 180,000 kilometres of on-the-ground testing each year. This information is important as it could help to build an independent coverage map, a key recommendation of the recent Regional Telecommunications Review, giving Australians accurate, unbiased insight into where they can expect service. But independent mapping will not fix all the problems with the nation's major telecommunications carriers. The fact is there is precious little to protect telecommunications consumers. The telecommunications industry itself develops the TCP Code (the sector's consumer protections rulebook) and is required to conduct a review every five years. The TCP Code already offers inadequate consumer protections and is not underpinned by effective compliance, enforcement and penalty arrangements. There are countless examples of consumer harm from this weak regulation. In May, ACCAN voted "no" in a ballot of the TCP Code Review Committee- of which we are a part - on the question of whether the draft Code should be sent to the regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority for consideration. Despite this, and despite 22 other consumer groups already walking away from the industry led code process, the ballot was carried. The revised Code has now been submitted to the ACMA for potential registration - a process that raises significant questions about whether the proposed updates meet community needs. Domestic, family and sexual violence and financial hardship have been taken out of the TCP Code, replaced with direct regulation in the last 18 months. This is a recognition of the critical nature of the problems, and the inadequacy of the code system. The current TCP Code fails to provide adequate consumer protections in two critical areas: irresponsible sales and inadequate credit assessments. These gaps result in thousands of Australians being sold plans they can't afford, don't understand, or never needed in the first place. These harms are exacerbated by sales incentive structures that reward telco staff for maximising sales volume and value - an eerily similar model to that called out and reformed in the financial services sector following the banking royal commission. Despite months of consultation, the final version of the draft Code submitted to the ACMA has not meaningfully strengthened these protections. The sales clauses still allow commission-based incentives and fail to impose clear duties to ensure affordability or product suitability. We are concerned that proposals in the Telecommunications (Enhancing Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2025 before parliament to make code compliance mandatory will not fully solve the problem - because the issue lies in the content of the industry-led code. The Ombudsman, the ACMA and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) have all criticised the process in which the industry is in charge of writing the nation's telecommunications protections. ACCAN has now joined the 22 consumer groups fed up with weak telecommunications regulation in the Fair Call Coalition. The answer is simple: new Minister for Communications, Anika Wells must reject the farcical process by which the industry (Communications Alliance) writes the nation's primary consumer protection code for telecommunications - and apply robust and enforceable rules in key areas of consumer harm. Consumers deserve and demand appropriate protections - and will be closely watching the leadership brought to bear by the federal government and the regulator to ensure their safety.
AU Financial Review
3 hours ago
- AU Financial Review
‘It's been one of the hardest things we've had to deal with'
Before she was the chief executive of Dun & Bradstreet, the first Australian woman to lead a management buyout, and a company director, Christine Christian grew up in the country, an hour out of Melbourne. Every Sunday, her father would take her and her siblings to the big smoke, where the Victorian State Library was a regular haunt. 'I got to know every nook and cranny in this place when I was young,' she says from a quiet room at the institution. 'We'd look at the big maps and atlases, and dream of where we might go. I still remember walking up the steps as a little kid. It was all just … so grand, so awe-inspiring.'
Sky News AU
3 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Nationals Leader David Littleproud demand Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rules out kowtowing on US beef imports
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese 'needs to' immediately rule out kowtowing to Donald Trump on biosecurity laws on US beef imports, Nationals Leader David Littleproud has demanded. Government officials reportedly told The Sydney Morning Herald that Australia could alter its biosecurity laws to allow US beef exports without risks to local industry, in a move to appease Trump as he wages his trade war. Australia banned US beef in 2003 after a mad cow disease outbreak before undoing this in 2019 when the outbreak subsided. Cattle raised in Mexico and Canada but slaughtered in the US is still banned, however, this could be changed according to the report. Mr Littleproud raised concerns about Australia's cattle industry on Friday and urged the Prime Minister not to use the sector as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the US President. 'There needs to be certainty. The Prime Minister needs to rule it out immediately,' the Nationals Leader said on Sky News. 'He needs to make sure that he's very clear with Australian producers that our biosecurity standards will not be reduced and that … if we want to get imports that originated from Mexico or Canada, that there's some traceability on it like Australian producers have.' He called for the Prime Minister to be transparent with Australian beef producers as concerns fester about the nation's biosecurity following this report. 'I don't think Australian producers are asking for anything unfair here, they're just trying to protect their production systems, making sure that they can not only feed Australians but feed the world,' Mr Littleproud said. 'The Prime Minister and his department who are mooting these things need to be very, very clear with Australian beef producers that it's not on the table and it won't be on the table at all. 'But when you start getting these reports - you don't start seeing these reports unless there's smoke and when there's smoke, there's fire.' Australia exports more than $4b of beef to the US annually, making it the largest market for Aussie beef exports behind China. After Trump revealed his sweeping tariffs and invited impacted nations to negotiate, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese vowed to protect the nation's biosecurity laws, Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and news publishers against tech giants. 'We will not weaken the measures that protect our farmers and producers from the risks of disease or contamination,' he said in a statement. Cattle Australia chief executive Chris Parker issued a statement highlighting the importance of traceability for foreign-produced beef. 'Our position is that the US needs to be able to demonstrate it can either trace cattle born in Mexico and Canada, or has systems that are equivalent to Australia's traceability, before imports of meat could occur from non-US cattle,' Mr Parker said. 'Cattle Australia is in ongoing communication with the Federal Government regarding this issue and the vital importance that our science-based biosecurity system is not compromised as part of trade discussions with any country.' Mr Albanese is expected to have a meeting with Trump either on the sidelines of the G7 meeting in Canada or in the US later in June where the Prime Minister will make Australia's case for tariff exemptions. Australia faces 50 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium alongside a broad 10 per cent levy on all goods, which is still paused by the Trump Administration.
