Overall, the report took a strikingly positive view of Australia’s workplace system, adding that its strength should not be “put at risk lightly” through sweeping changes:
“For well over a century Australians have debated what is the right legal framework for wages, working conditions and employment… Over the last 20 years, however, both the legal framework and the nature of Australian industrial relations have profoundly changed….While there are important distinctions between each of the four legislative frameworks for industrial relations since the shift towards a greater focus on enterprise bargaining in 1993, they also have a good deal in common, including an emphasis on bargaining at the enterprise level, constraints on resort to arbitration, a safety net of minimum conditions, and recognition of a right to strike in pursuit of a collective agreement.
“Over those two decades the pertinent economic outcomes have been congenial to continued prosperity. Industrial disputes are uncommon, overall wages growth has remained consistent with low consumer price inflation while wages growth between industries and regions is responding to supply and demand, unemployment has steadily declined while participation in the workforce has increased, wages after inflation have markedly improved, and at the same time the profit share of incomes has increased. These are considerable achievements, not to be put at risk lightly.”
What happens next?
It’ll be another month before the government releases its response to the recommendations. Shorten says he’ll be meeting stakeholders in that time, and hopes to legislate some of the “uncontroversial” recommendations in the spring parliamentary session.
Businesses hoping for an overhaul of the entire regime shouldn’t hold their breath. The report was a tick of approval of the current regime.
The issue remains difficult politically. Peter Gahan, a professor of management and industrial relations expert at the University of Melbourne, told LeadingCompany this morning that the issue is too politically charged for either party to push any dramatic changes to the industrial relations regime.
“It will be very difficult, even for the current opposition, should it win government – as it’s likely to do so – to bring about sweeping changes to industrial relations,” he says. “It’s still such a hot issue.”
“What some businesses were calling for, things like the return of AWAs [Australian Workplace Agreements], was never going to happen, because it’s too much like a return to WorkChoices”
Nonetheless, he says the review is significant because it followed “an extended period in which the business community put enormous pressure on the government to look at the legislation”.
“They had the review well before the originally planned,” he said. “This suggests it was an issue for the government.”
The full report can be read here (pdf). Our sister site SmartCompany has canvassed some of the reaction of business groups to the review here.
Myriam Robin is a reporter for SmartCompany and its sister site LeadingCompany. She has degrees in economics, international studies and journalism. She likes writing about businesses taking risks and doing new things.
