At the 15th annual Ron McCallum Debate, panellists challenged long-held assumptions about fairness and productivity. Their reflections reveal what HR practitioners should prioritise to build more inclusive, sustainable and high-performing workplaces.

Sustainable productivity demands work systems designed for fairness and inclusion. That was one of the key themes to come out of the 15th annual Ron McCallum Debate, which took place in Sydney earlier this month.

Over the past two decades, this debate has become one of the rare spaces where employers, unions, academics and policymakers sit together to debate the future of work. 

The event’s namesake, Professor Emeritus Ron McCallum AO – who is one of Australia’s most influential labour law scholars, the first totally blind person appointed to a full professorship in Australia and a global advocate for workers’ rights – set the tone with his opening remarks.

“Fairness is a word in Australian labour law that we’ve been paying lip service to for years and years,” he said. “We have what I’d call a surface approach to fairness.

“We’ve been in love with the word ‘fairness’ in relation to statutes. The very first one I can find is the Fair Work Act 1994 of South Australia… [then] the Fair Employment Bill 2000 in Victoria, which failed to pass. And of course we have the Fair Work Act in 2009.” 

If we want to design truly fair workplaces, he said, then we need to “go deeper”. Professor McCallum went on to cite statistics which suggest how far Australia has to go.

“First of all, there’s the Equality at Work Index [released in] November… from the Australian Center for Gender Equity and Inclusion at Work at the University of Sydney. They show that while gender equity has increased for many women in the areas of safety, health and harassment, [overall progress is] going backwards. We’re losing fairness for women in the workplace, particularly in the area of safety.”

He also cited the 2025 Workplace Wellbeing Index, which found that mental health and burnout rates over the past three years have gone backwards for Australia.

His point, which was echoed by other panellists, is that Australia’s efforts to embed fairness into its national DNA aren’t necessarily being reflected in the broader workforce.

“I think we need… not surface[-level] fairness, but deep listening by employers, employees and trade unions. We need to listen to employees. We need to make people [feel] welcome. We need to ensure inclusion… and take fairness into a deeper area where it has much more meaning for all employees.”

Across two hours, the panellists returned repeatedly to two intertwined ideas: that fairness must be understood through lived experience, not legal architecture alone; and that productivity cannot be sustainably achieved unless fairness is embedded in workplace design, leadership and systems.

What emerged was a nuanced reflection on the state of Australian workplaces. Below, HRM has translated these reflections into considerations for HR practitioners who are seeking tangible ways to create fairer, more productive organisations.

A workplace relations system designed for fairness, but not yet delivering it

ACTU Assistant Secretary Liam O’Brien shared his view that while Australia’s system aspires to fairness, structural imbalances in bargaining power have obstructed it. 

“I think about the ILO [International Labour Organisation] fundamental principles: freedom from discrimination, protections against forced and child labour, the right to a healthy and safe working environment – which is a new fundamental principle at work – and collective bargaining. And fundamentally, it’s all about workers having agency and workplace parties coming together,” said O’Brien.

He believes Australia is on track to start restoring fairness.

“Many of the changes that the Minister [for Workplace Relations] went through [in] restoring collective bargaining are, at [their] heart, about restoring fairness in the workplace and giving workers more agency – something I think, for the better part of a generation, was lost in this country.

“We have a lot of work to do in terms of bringing to life those fundamental principles and rights of work.”

Workplace fairness is not static, he added. It must evolve as workforce expectations, demographic patterns and work models change. 

“We need to listen to employees. We need to make people [feel] welcome. We need to ensure inclusion… and take fairness into a deeper area where it has much more meaning for all employees.” – Professor Emeritus Ron McCallum AO

How should we measure fairness and productivity?

Fairness can be difficult to measure. Dr Wesa Chau, Executive Director at Per Capita, argued that fairness must be judged by outcomes, not rhetoric.

“There’s a whole range of ways to measure fairness, but I think one of the key ways is to look at people who are in a more vulnerable position and [assess] whether or not we see them in more senior roles,” said Dr Chau.

This outcome-based view reflects a broader shift in HR practice toward examining workplace systems, not only policies. It also aligns with McCallum’s call for “deep listening” – understanding how fairness is experienced differently across gender, culture, disability, age and employment status.

Associate Professor Anna Boucher, who is a global migration expert at the University of Sydney, agreed, highlighting the importance of addressing systemic barriers that prevent certain cohorts from experiencing fairness at work. 

Boucher cited a report from Settlement Services Australia which found that even when accounting for skill, visa category and occupation, unexplained gaps remain for migrant workers.

“They [looked] at all the reasons why recent migrants are working in jobs below their skill level, and arguably earning less than they should be given their skill level. They bring in a variety of controls in their analysis, such as the visa [and] the workplace, [and] what they found is an unexplained element…. Deloitte, who wrote the report with Settlement Services International, puts that down to racism.”

Boucher said similar conclusions are drawn when assessing the systemic reasons behind gender pay gaps.

“You [measure these things] through standard statistical analysis. And once you can hold certain variables, then the unexplained component can generally be attributed to discrimination.”

Such evidence serves as a reminder that the presence of laws does not guarantee fairness in practice.

Emma Dawson, Executive Director of the Chifley Research Centre, added that Australia’s metrics for measuring productivity are also outdated. She said traditional productivity metrics (output divided by hours worked) don’t work in the fastest-growing segments of our economy: care and services.

“You could say: well, a nurse is now serving 15 patients where before she was serving 10. That’s [on paper] a productivity gain. But if six of them are suffering because she can’t provide [adequate or timely] care, then that is not [a gain] in terms of an improved living standard. So the way we measure productivity growth, particularly in care and services, is inadequate.

Globally, there has been a shift in measuring productivity within these sectors differently, she said.

“[The panel has] talked about wellbeing metrics. [And] our own Productivity Commission, under Chair Danielle Wood… is starting to look at quality-adjusted measurements in health and education, for example.”

To illustrate her point, Dawson turned to early childhood education and presented a scenario: A woman who is a qualified engineer might stay home for five years to care for her children but, as Dawson notes, “She would be much better off applying those skills in the economy… So let’s give that childcare work to a qualified professional.”

This seems like a clear win. The woman contributes her high-level skills to the labour market, and her child receives expert early learning support. 

But Dawson explains that the way Australia currently measures productivity fails to capture the value of this arrangement. 

“In that scenario, under our current measured productivity, we are seeing a decline [in productivity].”

This is because early childhood educators are counted as “low productivity” workers, while the long-term economic benefits of high-quality early learning are not measured at all. 

“The real productivity growth combines both the investment in that child – which we know returns at least $2 for every dollar invested over their lifetime – and the productivity benefits of the woman fulfilling her best abilities and meeting her full potential,” she said

“Measurement needs a big rethink. GDP was invented because we needed to know how we were going to pay for the Second World War. What resources did we have that [could] be put to that? And there was a decision that domestic work was not relevant to that. [But] we cannot continue [with that assumption]. These metrics are important, they’re necessary, but they’re no longer sufficient.

“So, to ensure that the benefits of productivity are shared [and] people’s lives do improve, we need to think much more holistically about what [the] inputs to the economy [actually are]. It’s not just the number of paid hours you work. It’s the input that you’re making across your whole life and what you are getting in return.”

Thought-starter questions for HR leaders

• Are we measuring fairness in terms of lived experience, not just compliance?
• What unexplained gaps exist in our workforce data – and what might they be signalling?
• Do our productivity measures reflect what actually creates value in a modern organisation?

Why fairness failures persist in modern workplaces

While Australia’s legislative and institutional frameworks are robust, several speakers highlighted the mismatch between system design and on-the-ground experience.

Dawson traced the issue back to the original social purpose of work in Australia – grounded in the eight-hour day and the Harvester judgment (a decision which set a ‘living’ or ‘family’ wage) – and argued that the erosion of time, security and care has left many workers unable to experience fairness as it was originally conceived.

“One of the things I think people don’t take into account enough is that when we first started doing the [labour] force series [in] about 1980… only around a third of women were in the workforce. By the year 2000, that was up to around half, and it’s now at an all-time high of 63.1 per cent.

“Critically, the increase in the number of women in the workforce just this century – so since 2000 – [for] women of child-bearing age, [around] 25–45, [has increased] by 15 per cent. So the amount of work households are putting into the economy to have a similar standard of living over the past 25 years is arguably more than we recognise.”

Dawson emphasised that structural realities must shape modern definitions of fairness. For example, despite record female workforce participation, care responsibilities remain unequally distributed. Also, flexible work options often don’t meaningfully reduce the cognitive load on parents, particularly women. 

“The point I’m trying to make is [that the] original concept that came from the [stone masons’ campaign] and the Harvester Judgment – that work should contribute to a good life, and that the realm outside of paid work is to be considered when we think about fairness – [was] almost a uniquely Australian position.

“And it’s more important now than ever, because households are pretty much at their capacity for how many hours of paid and unpaid work they can take on. I think there is further to go in how we think about time as well as income.”

Thought-starter questions for HR leaders

• Do fairness metrics include indicators such as time poverty, workload realism and inclusion outcomes?
• Do our job design, workload expectations and flexibility settings reflect the real time pressures facing modern households?
•  Are we examining fairness through a ‘time justice’ lens, not just a pay or policy lens?

“You cannot have productivity without ensuring fairness.” – Liam O’Brien, ACTU Assistant Secretar

Productivity intertwined with fairness, not in tension with it

The panel then turned to the topic of productivity being positioned in opposition to fairness. 

“The premise of this debate is, ‘Is there a trade off between productivity and fairness?’ We would say absolutely there is not,” said O’Brien. “The two are interdependent; they’re related. You cannot have productivity without ensuring fairness. 

“In fact, I think what happens too often in this country is [that] productivity is used by some to describe what is profitability. The idea that workers need to work harder for less, and that is how we have a road to greater national prosperity.

“But unless workers feel that they have some agency [or] some reward in return for [their] effort, then productivity will never eventuate.” 

While O’Brien emphasised the central role of fairness and worker agency, Steve Knott AM,  CEO of Australian Resources & Energy Employer Association, offered a different but complementary view. 

He argued that productivity is often shaped less by industrial settings and more by leadership capability and organisational design. 

“If you’ve got the leadership piece right… the other transaction stuff in the IR system [fits into place],” he said.

Knott also reminded the audience that productivity challenges vary significantly across industries, particularly in capital-intensive sectors such as mining and energy. 

He pointed to long investment cycles, cost pressures and global competition as factors that shape workplaces as much as employment law does, arguing that national productivity depends in part on creating conditions for ongoing investment.

Some of these projects have seven-year approval processes, he said. If barriers persist, the money will most likely flow offshore, he said.

At the enterprise level, Knott said many organisations improve productivity by building shared incentives rather than relying solely on regulatory levers. 

He pointed to companies that use performance-based pay, completion bonuses and shared ownership models to align employees and leaders around long-term outcomes. 

“Everybody’s invested in the performance of the business, and they get a share. [Businesses have] been doing that since last century.

“Some incentives will be the benefits that have been talked about [throughout the panel] in terms of working from home and other benefits where it’s possible… and others will be cash incentives through milestone completion bonuses. 

“If employees have skin in the game, that makes a difference.”

These systems, he suggested, create a sense of mutual purpose that supports both fairness and performance. 

Thought-starter questions for HR leaders

• Does your productivity strategy focus on work design, skills and technology – or merely cost control?
  
• Are our productivity expectations grounded in genuine fairness and employee agency, or are we unintentionally relying on ‘work harder for less’ assumptions?
  
• Are we adapting our productivity strategies to the specific realities of our industry, workforce and operating model?

A forward path for HR: from debate to practice

The 15th Ron McCallum Debate revealed both the strengths and blind spots of Australia’s workplace relations landscape. 

It highlighted the progress made, the inequities that remain and the structural shifts required to ensure fairness keeps pace with societal change.

It also underscored the critical influence of HR practitioners. Creating a fairer workplace does not depend solely on legislation or the design of the industrial relations system. It also depends on whether organisations:

• build systems that distribute voice and agency
  
• design jobs that are psychologically safe, inclusive and sustainable
  
• recognise care and time as integral to performance
  
• identify and dismantle systemic barriers
  
• invest meaningfully in skills and capability
  
• treat fairness as a lived experience, not a compliance activity.

As McCallum reminded the audience in his closing words, fairness must be lived, not merely legislated.

“If we want to keep productivity with all these changes, we must ensure everybody is looked after.”

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