Scott Morrison has broken ranks with his Coalition colleagues, saying he has been a pioneer in supporting the right to totally detach yourself from all responsibilities when you’re not at work, and also when you are.
“Workers should have the right to ignore an out-of-hours email or a once-in-a-generation bushfire emergency,” Morrison told media today. “There’s nothing so important that it can’t wait until Monday morning or until you’ve made the most of happy hour at the hotel bar in Honolulu”.
He rejected the ‘always-on’ nature of modern work. “There’s this expectation to be switched on five to six hours a day, four days a week. But I’ve always found it unrealistic to maintain those sort of hours”.
The former PM said he’d always practiced switching off after a hard day at work. “When I was Prime Minister I’d come home after a hard day in the office and then make it a rule to not do any work for the next three to four months.
“People aren’t going to die if you don’t get back to an email straight away. I had an email from Pfizer sitting in my inbox for the best of 2020. I got back to them eventually and, apart from it causing an unnecessary 4-month lockdown in Victoria and NSW, it really made no difference”.
