August 4, 2025 • 6 mins
How does business feel about the Victorian government's plan to legislate the right to work from home?
Today Sean Aylmer is joined by Adam Schwab, co-founder and CEO of Luxury Escapes - a vocal opponent of Premier Jacinta Allan's plan to legislate the right to work from home two days a week.
Fear & Greed Q+A: Join Sean Aylmer & Michael Thompson as they answer questions on business, investing, economics, politics and more. If you have your own question, get in touch via our website, LinkedIn, Instagram or Facebook!
Find out more: https://fearandgreed.com.au/
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome to Fearing Greed Q and A, where we ask
and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics and more.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Sean Eelmorant today.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
How does business feel about the Victorian government's plan to
legislate the right to work from home? Over the weekend,
Premier to Center Allen announced plans to introduce legislation guaranteeing
the right to work from home two days a week
from employees across both the public and private sector. Unions
like it, Business not so much. Adam Schwab is he
co founder and CEO of Luxury Escapes. He's a vocal
(00:36):
opponent of the plan. Adam, Welcome back to Fearing Greed
Q and A.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Thanks Jano, It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What's wrong with the proposal?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Well, I actually don't know how serious this proposal really is.
There's obviously constitutional issues. States can't pass employment legislation. This
is pretty clearly an employment legislation that conflicts with Veger. Also,
I think she's just into Alan Victoria's premiers sort of
mootor divers as an h under the compacial health and
safety or some sort of strange laws, but realistically so
(01:04):
echo opportunity laws. I should say, but I think realistically
she knows, Labor knows this is just a samd bite
and a way to We saw what happened to Peter
done and when he ham fistially suggested everybody has to
work from the office in the public service, and he
got that was one of the many reasons he got
he lost. I certainly don't think that was the only reason.
I think he sold it horrendously, But ultimately I'm actually
not sure how serious this is. But let's play pretend
(01:26):
to potentially what is being serious and that they can
get it through, which I don't think they can. This
is like as dumb an idea as I ever heard.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
In my life.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And I'm watch forty five now. I've maken pretty dumb things,
but this is not as sean. I've been very vocal
on what I want from our business and our employees,
and we're a business that we work from the office
by default five days a week.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
But there's a big asterisk there that.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
There are lots of people in our team who aren't
working from the office five days a week because they've
got a genuine reason not too. They could be parents
with kids, which is the most common reason, could be
looking after parents, so caring it could be disability. There's
a lot of reasons why peop need flexibility and work
from home. We as a five day work, five day
week office is very much in favor of that, but
there obviously are lots and lots of reasons why you can't.
(02:09):
But to think that a government can legislate for someone
this is as batshit crazy idea as I've ever heard
in my lifetime.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Who loses out most? Is it the business or is
it actually the employees who lose out most if they
don't come in.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Well, absolutely, the employees are the biggest losers here, and
for a number of reasons. I've talked about this a lot,
so I'm obviously we run the business, but ultimately you
run the business because you want to work with an
incredible team and create incredible value for our customers and
for our team, and you just can't do it, Especially
when I say employees, young employees are the ones that
really suffer here. If you're a forty five fifty year
old person who's reached the top of that field, you're
(02:44):
an ic or we'll call it, we'll call an independent contractor.
You're a brilliant developer, you're a brilliant specialist in your area.
You can easily work from home and you actually you
will be as useful to the business as whether you're
come into the office in most cases for you personally,
people who suffer are the twenty two twenty five year
olds who aren't getting taught like we all did twenty
years ago by people who have been there before. So
(03:05):
it's absolutely the younger people who completely get hit. And actually,
nothing annoys me more is when you've got a team
of twenty five year olds wore desperate to come into
the office for the mentoring and for the learning, and
the selfish forty five year old manager can't be stuff
coming in. That's that's the worst situation. So it's it's
an absolute Our system of government is hugely in favor
of older people. And this is I'm not blaming older
(03:26):
people for this, but look at every part of our
tax legislation makes the rich get richer who are neverly older,
and the poor stay poor, which is everly younger. This
is just another nail in the coffin of younger people
who have been now being for Not only are we
not letting them buy into the into the housing market.
Because of ridiculous taxes like principal home residence exemption, we're
now making them work from home when they might want
to come into an offer. It's just like lunacy, and
(03:49):
it does it certainly doesn't help the employee and ultimately,
as someone who is a business, who are people working
together that creating lots of value. If my competitors want
to work from home five days a week, love that
like it means we're gonna have an advantage over them.
So we have a competitive one of our competitors who
is teetering drawds bankruptcy, but they get all these awards
for working from home. Well, that's that's totally fine with us.
What you don't want is people being forced to work
(04:11):
from home. Let businesses decide if somebody wants to. When
somebody comes to us for a job, we tell we're
really upfront. We say we are a five day week
office culture. If that doesn't suit you, if you live
four hours away, if you need lots of flexibility that
even we can't provide, we think you's both get a
job elsewhere. We're very honest up front. But there's lots
of lots of people who want that there's lots of
(04:31):
people who want to work in the office. Let's just
let people decide what they want to do. Let businesses
decide what they want to do.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Okay, I mean, I don't mean to flog a dead
horse here a little bit, but they're just sitting around
talking about, you know, saving households money, saving time, commuting
easier for parents, caring with kids. I think what you're saying, though, Adam,
is that there's there is a middle grad. I mean,
you can do all that sort of stuff without legislating it,
and we do now.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So we're a five day week office culture. Yeah, we
have lots of parents with kids who either don't do
the five days a week while they have Also, you
don't have kids your whole life. You have kids. I've
got young kids, but eventually your young kids become older
kids and then become adults. So like, there is a
point where you aren't caring for them anymore. So certainly
when you're in there, my kids are eight and ten,
that's right in the thick of it, So you've got
bigger commitments than when the kids are seventeen and twenty one.
(05:16):
So like the notion that she's just picking the thin
edge of the wedge and obviously pushing a barrel for
cheap votes, but also it's a huge the people who
get hit and the people who always get hit, the
younger people who don't realize what they're losing.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Okay, before you go luxury escapes, how is it's? What's
the industry like at the moment?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Is it being rattled by all these tariffs and geopolitical
issues or is everyone just flying to Europe.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
We're pretty lucky. I think Europe and the US, especially
the US feel a bit more challenged. But also our
business is much more of a short haul business. So yes,
we do tell Us and Europe, no doubt. But we're
our specialty Bali, Fiji, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Queensland. We've had
a record year out sort of significantly profits up, so
triple digits. So yeah, we're we're been able to do
(05:57):
all right. That's not to say that we're approxy for
the entire sector, because we are. We provide the best
sort of value on earth, so when the times are
a bit tougher, people tend to come to us as well,
because you can go to Bali for a couple of
grand and have an incredible trip where maybe you would
have went twenty grand in Europe. So we are a
bit of a defensive cyclical business, if that makes sense.
So we've been able to get through. Okay, we've seen
(06:18):
flights and other businesses have profit warnings to the last
at a couple of weeks. They're obviously an incredible business. I'm
sure they bounced back, but it is a slightly tougher
time for those travel business exposed to the so longer
haul stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Adam, thanks for talking to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Thanks Sean.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That is Adam Schraub, co founder and CEO of Luxury Escapes.
Remember if you've got something you'd like to know, then
send through your question on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, at Fearinggreed
dot com dot au. I'm Shanaeoma and this is Fear
and Greed pure name.
Welcome to Fearing Greed Q and A, where we ask
and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics and more.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I'm Sean Eelmorant today.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
How does business feel about the Victorian government's plan to
legislate the right to work from home? Over the weekend,
Premier to Center Allen announced plans to introduce legislation guaranteeing
the right to work from home two days a week
from employees across both the public and private sector. Unions
like it, Business not so much. Adam Schwab is he
co founder and CEO of Luxury Escapes. He's a vocal
(00:36):
opponent of the plan. Adam, Welcome back to Fearing Greed
Q and A.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Thanks Jano, It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
What's wrong with the proposal?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Well, I actually don't know how serious this proposal really is.
There's obviously constitutional issues. States can't pass employment legislation. This
is pretty clearly an employment legislation that conflicts with Veger. Also,
I think she's just into Alan Victoria's premiers sort of
mootor divers as an h under the compacial health and
safety or some sort of strange laws, but realistically so
(01:04):
echo opportunity laws. I should say, but I think realistically
she knows, Labor knows this is just a samd bite
and a way to We saw what happened to Peter
done and when he ham fistially suggested everybody has to
work from the office in the public service, and he
got that was one of the many reasons he got
he lost. I certainly don't think that was the only reason.
I think he sold it horrendously, But ultimately I'm actually
not sure how serious this is. But let's play pretend
(01:26):
to potentially what is being serious and that they can
get it through, which I don't think they can. This
is like as dumb an idea as I ever heard.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
In my life.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
And I'm watch forty five now. I've maken pretty dumb things,
but this is not as sean. I've been very vocal
on what I want from our business and our employees,
and we're a business that we work from the office
by default five days a week.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
But there's a big asterisk there that.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
There are lots of people in our team who aren't
working from the office five days a week because they've
got a genuine reason not too. They could be parents
with kids, which is the most common reason, could be
looking after parents, so caring it could be disability. There's
a lot of reasons why peop need flexibility and work
from home. We as a five day work, five day
week office is very much in favor of that, but
there obviously are lots and lots of reasons why you can't.
(02:09):
But to think that a government can legislate for someone
this is as batshit crazy idea as I've ever heard
in my lifetime.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Who loses out most? Is it the business or is
it actually the employees who lose out most if they
don't come in.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Well, absolutely, the employees are the biggest losers here, and
for a number of reasons. I've talked about this a lot,
so I'm obviously we run the business, but ultimately you
run the business because you want to work with an
incredible team and create incredible value for our customers and
for our team, and you just can't do it, Especially
when I say employees, young employees are the ones that
really suffer here. If you're a forty five fifty year
old person who's reached the top of that field, you're
(02:44):
an ic or we'll call it, we'll call an independent contractor.
You're a brilliant developer, you're a brilliant specialist in your area.
You can easily work from home and you actually you
will be as useful to the business as whether you're
come into the office in most cases for you personally,
people who suffer are the twenty two twenty five year
olds who aren't getting taught like we all did twenty
years ago by people who have been there before. So
(03:05):
it's absolutely the younger people who completely get hit. And actually,
nothing annoys me more is when you've got a team
of twenty five year olds wore desperate to come into
the office for the mentoring and for the learning, and
the selfish forty five year old manager can't be stuff
coming in. That's that's the worst situation. So it's it's
an absolute Our system of government is hugely in favor
of older people. And this is I'm not blaming older
(03:26):
people for this, but look at every part of our
tax legislation makes the rich get richer who are neverly older,
and the poor stay poor, which is everly younger. This
is just another nail in the coffin of younger people
who have been now being for Not only are we
not letting them buy into the into the housing market.
Because of ridiculous taxes like principal home residence exemption, we're
now making them work from home when they might want
to come into an offer. It's just like lunacy, and
(03:49):
it does it certainly doesn't help the employee and ultimately,
as someone who is a business, who are people working
together that creating lots of value. If my competitors want
to work from home five days a week, love that
like it means we're gonna have an advantage over them.
So we have a competitive one of our competitors who
is teetering drawds bankruptcy, but they get all these awards
for working from home. Well, that's that's totally fine with us.
What you don't want is people being forced to work
(04:11):
from home. Let businesses decide if somebody wants to. When
somebody comes to us for a job, we tell we're
really upfront. We say we are a five day week
office culture. If that doesn't suit you, if you live
four hours away, if you need lots of flexibility that
even we can't provide, we think you's both get a
job elsewhere. We're very honest up front. But there's lots
of lots of people who want that there's lots of
(04:31):
people who want to work in the office. Let's just
let people decide what they want to do. Let businesses
decide what they want to do.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Okay, I mean, I don't mean to flog a dead
horse here a little bit, but they're just sitting around
talking about, you know, saving households money, saving time, commuting
easier for parents, caring with kids. I think what you're saying, though, Adam,
is that there's there is a middle grad. I mean,
you can do all that sort of stuff without legislating it,
and we do now.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
So we're a five day week office culture. Yeah, we
have lots of parents with kids who either don't do
the five days a week while they have Also, you
don't have kids your whole life. You have kids. I've
got young kids, but eventually your young kids become older
kids and then become adults. So like, there is a
point where you aren't caring for them anymore. So certainly
when you're in there, my kids are eight and ten,
that's right in the thick of it, So you've got
bigger commitments than when the kids are seventeen and twenty one.
(05:16):
So like the notion that she's just picking the thin
edge of the wedge and obviously pushing a barrel for
cheap votes, but also it's a huge the people who
get hit and the people who always get hit, the
younger people who don't realize what they're losing.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Okay, before you go luxury escapes, how is it's? What's
the industry like at the moment?
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Is it being rattled by all these tariffs and geopolitical
issues or is everyone just flying to Europe.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
We're pretty lucky. I think Europe and the US, especially
the US feel a bit more challenged. But also our
business is much more of a short haul business. So yes,
we do tell Us and Europe, no doubt. But we're
our specialty Bali, Fiji, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Queensland. We've had
a record year out sort of significantly profits up, so
triple digits. So yeah, we're we're been able to do
(05:57):
all right. That's not to say that we're approxy for
the entire sector, because we are. We provide the best
sort of value on earth, so when the times are
a bit tougher, people tend to come to us as well,
because you can go to Bali for a couple of
grand and have an incredible trip where maybe you would
have went twenty grand in Europe. So we are a
bit of a defensive cyclical business, if that makes sense.
So we've been able to get through. Okay, we've seen
(06:18):
flights and other businesses have profit warnings to the last
at a couple of weeks. They're obviously an incredible business. I'm
sure they bounced back, but it is a slightly tougher
time for those travel business exposed to the so longer
haul stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Adam, thanks for talking to Fear and Greed.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Thanks Sean.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
That is Adam Schraub, co founder and CEO of Luxury Escapes.
Remember if you've got something you'd like to know, then
send through your question on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, at Fearinggreed
dot com dot au. I'm Shanaeoma and this is Fear
and Greed pure name.
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