Obsequies for Industrial Equity

By Keith Hancock

John Howard said the industrial relations package gives effect to principles 'that I have sought to articulate over two decades'. Details may have changed, but the objective has been consistent: employers and employees should deal directly with each others, with as little interference as is possible from 'third parties' - governments, arbitrators and unions.

Howard was arguing this in the mid-eighties; as shadow minister for industrial relations in 1990, he spelt it out to the H R Nicholls Society; it was rather bravely articulated in Jobsback (written for the 1993 election); and a more timid version - Better Pay for Better Work - preceded the 1996 election. In the latter, the guiding philosophy was clearly spelt out:

The most important industrial relations reform needed in Australia is one which will allow employers and employees to enter into direct arrangements with each other regarding pay and working conditions within a 'no disadvantage' framework of minimum conditions but without the uninvited intervention of trade unions, employer organisations or industrial tribunals and without the complexity of the existing system.

I do not know enough about Howard to say whether he brought his ideas with him when he entered federal politics in the mid-seventies, or he learnt them from Treasury officers such as John Stone and Des Moore, or they had some other source.

The declining hold of trade unions on the workforce is, of course, an historical force that has helped Howard's agenda. He should, too, acknowledge other contributors to the gathering momentum of industrial re-regulation: to name a few, Sir Roderick Carnegie, Geoff Allen, Dick Blandy, John Freebairn, Fred Hilmer, Brian Noakes, Bill Kelty, Paul Keating, Peter Cook and John Edwards. Not all of these people had in mind what is about to happen. But when you mount a tiger, you cannot be too sure where it will take you.

National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University