2005 : a ‘watershed’ year in the history of Australian industrial relations?

In July 2005, the Howard federal Coalition government gained a majority in both houses of the Commonwealth parliament. This rare event in the recent history of the parliament has provided the government with a unique and probably limited opportunity to pass its legislation unamended by the upper house, the Senate. The government designated reform of the system of employment regulation in Australia as an important priority item in its parliamentary and political agenda. In particular, the government signalled its intention to create a unified system of employment regulation in Australia. This paper will study the government’s intentions and place them within a longer historical context in order to determine the extent to which these proposed changes represent a ‘watershed’ in the history of Australian industrial relations. The paper will discuss the increased reliance on the corporations power, as opposed to the conciliation and arbitration power of the Commonwealth Constitution as the legal basis for employment regulation in Australia. It will also discuss the shift in the priorities of the State away from dispute resolution and towards an economic efficiency and productivity based agenda. The declining significance of labour market institutions such as trade unions and the federal dispute settlement tribunals are central to this analysis of change and continuity in the Australian system of industrial relations.