Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce has warned Aussies are at risk of losing their jobs if they continue to work from home, amid the new boom in artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace.

The Australian Services Union (ASU) argues that employers should be forced to give employees six months’ notice before requiring they return to the office in a submission to the Fair Work Commission.

The union is also arguing for the presumption that work from home requests be approved and that if an employer seeks to vary or pause work from home arrangements, the six-month notice period should apply.

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In auxiliary to the rule, an employer would be required to have genuinely tried to reach agreement with the employee to accommodate the employee’s circumstances.

The employer would be required, under the clause, to respond within 14 days of an office worker’s request to work from home and is required to set out the business grounds, if refused.

Appearing on Sunrise, Joyce took aim at the proposal.

“It’s absurdity,” Joyce said.

“What you’re doing there is encouraging people not to employ people.

“You can’t just say you’re going to work from home today or you won’t have a job.”

Barr challenged Joyce, saying a lot of people can work from home.

Joyce replied: “I think you got to be careful.

“It’s not a myth, AI is coming.

“What you’re doing is encouraging people to say ‘OK, stay home for the whole week because you don’t have a job anymore’.

“AI is coming into clerical work and remove jobs left, right, and centre.

“I’d be doing everything in your power to try and keep your jobs because if people can prove they don’t need to come to the office, then the office can prove they can be replaced by AI.

“Be really careful in not being enthusiastic about not going to the office and getting to work.”

Barr pressed Joyce on how to protect the jobs.

Joyce said: “I don’t know whether you can, that’s the problem.

“What you have to do is broaden the base of the economy, so there are alternate jobs to go to.

“But in our genius, we have decided to go to net zero and intermittent power, so we don’t have an industrial base to absorb those jobs and that is one of the big problems we’ve got.”

Barr then pressed Albanese minister Tanya Plibersek on businesses claiming there will be a net increase in jobs due to AI.

Plibersek said: “I think there will be different types of jobs.

“A lot of the repetitive work will be done by AI in the future and what we need to do is make sure there are good jobs available for Australians in new and emerging industries as well.

“We’ve got real capacity to develop some of those AI tools right here.

“The big data centres we’re going to need to run some of these programs can be based right here and they can be powered by renewable energy.

“We have the cheapest form of energy available to us here in Australia.

“Solar, wind, we know it’s the cheapest form of new energy.”

Barr pressed Joyce on Aussies learning a trade, as AI can’t replicate the work.

Joyce said: “You are dead right.

“They should because I can assure to my accountancy days, electricians overwhelmingly earn more money than people who have graduated with arts degrees or junior degrees.

“Doctors can go and make good money, no doubt about that.

“But AI won’t be able to turn itself into a plumber or itself into an electrician or a chippy, so trades are a place where you can sustain a good level of employment.

“But if you are just in clerical work ... that’s what its genius does, (it) replaces people but it doesn’t have hands and it doesn’t have feet.”