Anthony Albanese will seek to reframe Labor's approach to business in a speech to be delivered in Canberra on Wednesday.
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The Labor leader will tell the Business Council of Australia event his party wants to work with business, ditching the "top end of town" rhetoric of the past.
"Labor aspires for people to have good, stable jobs with decent pay," he will say.
"We recognise that for that to happen, business has to have the conditions and the policies that allow it to grow.
"It's a straightforward equation: successful businesses create jobs,."
He says a "political circus" won't deliver the certainty businesses needs and neither will "political inactivity".
"The current government, with its emphasis on politics and political wedges, behaves like an opposition in exile on the government benches."
Mr Albanese has also taken issue with the government urging business to "stick to their knitting" instead of indulging in debates about such issues as indigenous reconciliation and various forms of discrimination.
"The most successful businesses operate in ways that reflect the values of their employees and their customers," he says.
"You are not just takers of profit. You see yourselves as part of the community."
The federal opposition leader plans to deliver a series of major speeches in coming months, the first of which will look at the future of work.
Australian Associated Press