The Legal Complexity of Workplace Regulation and its Impact Upon Functional Flexibility in Australian Workplaces

By Joel Fetter and Richard Mitchell

This paper examines the problematical relationship between the pursuit of workplace flexibility by Australian businesses and the complexity of Australian workplace regulation.

We seek to make two major points -- first, that the interrelationship between the contract of employment and various other industrial instruments potentially creates enormous complexity in the legal regulation of the employment relationship, and secondly, that this complexity may legally obstruct or impede the introduction of desired work changes in particular cases. Although these and other associated issues are common to the relationships between all industrial instruments in Australia, the discussion in this paper is centred on Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs).

University of Melbourne Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law

September 2004 Working Paper No. 31