On Tuesday 25 August 2026 I delivered a speech to Qld Parliament calling for a four day work week with no loss of pay. You can read my full speech below, or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard).
I want to put a question to all Queenslanders: how would you use an extra day a week off work? I am sure everyone here would use the time volunteering in their communities. Would you use it—I certainly would—to catch up on some housework, visit your mum and dad or that cousin you have not seen for years, go to the beach or finally pick up that dusty old guitar or your cross-stitch project? We need to talk about more time off work. There is no immutable law of nature that says we must work a five-day week. No-one here is old enough to remember it but, in fact, the work week used to be six days. Australian workers only won the weekend in 1948. The business lobby back then said that a five-day work week was crazy. In fact, the president of the Victorian Chamber of Manufacturers called it ‘an unnecessary and dangerous experiment’. Even the eight-hour workday was unimaginable before Australian unions led the way in making it law.
The bottom line is that we are always told that progress is impossible—and then it arrives. The time for a four-day work week is here. We are on the brink of an absolute explosion in AI and we are deciding right now who will reap the benefits of that. Technological advancements mean we can do more and produce more in less time, and this will only accelerate as AI advances. We always hear, presented as an absolute fact, that more productivity is good, but that begs the question of who gets the benefits. Right now businesses are making more money but the benefits are not trickling down to workers. That fallacy—that myth—has been busted. The share of GDP going towards workers has fallen steadily since the 80s. Meanwhile, the share of corporate profits has increased. A four-day week rewards workers' increased productivity with more time for themselves and for the people they love.
If a four-day work week sounds like some distant socialist utopia then I suggest you may not have been watching the news. A four-day work week has already been rolled out in plenty of places across the world. Following the largest trial in Iceland, 90 per cent of the population now has the right to reduced hours. In the UK, 92 per cent of companies that trialled it decided to keep it forever. In Australia, it has been permanently built into enterprise agreements at places like Medibank and in other industries. Those who trial the four-day work week keep it because it helps employees and employers. Workers are less stressed, they are less burnt out and fatigued, and they have more time to put towards hobbies, health and caring responsibilities.
The real kicker for employers is that they maintain or increase productivity. Independent studies on four-day work week trials in Australia have found it improves or maintains productivity. This is so important. Most recently, a two-year study released this year by Deakin University with 15 businesses found that not a single business reported a loss in productivity and nearly half reported productivity gains. A global trial across Australasia found sick and personal leave days fell, 38 per cent of employees said they were less stressed and 64 per cent were less burnt out. There is an interesting gender equality benefit too in that men were more likely to increase their contribution to housework and child care.
Quite simply, now is the time for a shorter working week with no loss of pay. As AI delivers more productivity, workers deserve to benefit. We are facing a climate crisis so a four-day work week could mean less travel and fewer emissions. With an aging population, more of us will have caring responsibilities that we will have to juggle with work, especially as major party governments continue to cut supports like the NDIS and aged care.
From the moment waged work became the norm, the expectation and the goal was that we would reduce the work week over time. We got the eight-hour day in the 19th century and the weekend in the 20th century. In the 1930s, economist John Maynard Keynes famously predicted that his grandkids would be working a 15-hour work week. Instead, we feel we have less time than ever.
In 2019 I first proposed a four-day work week trial in Queensland. We hear Labor is considering it but the Leader of the Opposition seems to have gone a bit cold. I encourage him to be brave. Seventy-six per cent of working Australians support a four-day work week with no loss of pay. Ultimately, this should be done at the federal level but we can be leaders in Queensland. We can introduce trials in the Public Service, consider payroll tax exemptions and incentives for private businesses that pick it up.