Fair, Fresh And Forward Approach To Workplace Reform

by Bob McMullan - The Australian

Economic credibility is not something that can be given. It has to be won on the basis of hard decisions. At least this is the case for a party in opposition.

Governments can be lucky and win economic credibility on the back of hard decisions of their predecessors. The federal Opposition last term made some hard decisions in the area of fiscal policy. This is essential but not sufficient.

Some of the decisions that will be required will be unpopular with commentators and media proprietors who are after all employers and players in industries that require reform. Others will be unpopular with industry groups. But the difficult decisions for Labor are those that may be unpopular with some unions or some within the party.

In this term, hard fiscal decisions will be needed again, but Labor will also require such strength in policy areas – including industrial relations. The first signs of recognition of this are emerging.

This will be no easy task. The Howard Government has been so aggressively biased in favour of employers that the temptation is to merely reverse its reprehensible and unfair measures. But a return to 1993 or 1996 is neither desirable nor possible.

The basic enterprise bargaining/productivity-based system developed in the Keating years was a great advance and right for its time. What is needed now is the 2005 equivalent.

The first thing that needs to be recognised is that it is in the national interest to have a uniform national industrial relations system. The economic efficiency argument is clear and unequivocal. The contemporary difficulty for Labor is the likely character of any proposed Howard government-imposed national IR system.

With state and territory Labor governments providing a safe harbour against the excesses of the Howard Government, it is tempting to take the short-term view and reject the economically efficient national system.

The case that needs to be made is that Australia needs a national system – not just any old national system but one that promotes fairness and efficiency. The important thing is to resist the siren song of the short-term appeal to parochialism and go for the long-term efficiency argument for a national scheme. In more specific cases, Labor needs to take a new, fresh and more positive approach to the issues of unfair dismissals and Australian Workplace Agreements.

This is not to advocate accepting the Howard Government's unfair agenda on either issue. It is obvious that there is no one in the Howard Government who has any sense of the devastation an unfair dismissal can bring to a working family. Some reasonable opportunity for redress is essential. However, it is clear that the existing system is generating unfairness for some small businesses and apprehension for others.

"Go away" money, which is a pay-off to avoid an unfair dismissal case, is often nothing more than blackmail and should not be tolerated.

Legal costs and the management cost of handling a case can be crippling for a small business with no human resources department. The processes seem designed to suit employer, employee and tribunal representatives used to dealing with cases on a large scale. Innovative process and, if necessary, legislative solutions appear to be available.

No system will make all parties happy with every dispute of this kind. There are sometimes irreconcilable differences. But the legal and institutional arrangements should not deny either party an effective right to be heard. The present arrangements are inadequate.

The Howard Government's alternative is worse. There is room for an innovative Labor solution. Similarly, there is room to take what is positive from AWAs while rejecting their unfair features.

Nobody who has seen the effect of AWAs on the working conditions of low-paid Australians with weak bargaining power, such as cleaners and catering staff, could accept that the present policy should continue.

However, abolishing all AWAs is not the only alternative. With proper and open scrutiny by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission rather than the totally inadequate Office of the Employment Advocate, and perhaps differential treatment for executive and professional employees from that for low-paid or unskilled workers, an alternative form of AWA that gains the efficiency benefits without the adverse social consequences should be possible.

These are just a few examples of the opportunity for Labor to develop a positive economic agenda while distinguishing itself from the harsher social consequences of the Howard agenda.

Such an agenda alone would not be sufficient to elect a Labor government but it is a precondition to any hard-won victory. Of course there is always the alternative of waiting for the Government to fall out of office. But that is a wholly negative proposition.

The better option is to develop a positive alternative agenda. In economic policy, fiscal discipline and new and more positive industrial relations policy will be good building blocks for a broader economic agenda that would need to address innovation, skills, infrastructure and exports.

The new economic team has made a good start. These are some of the next-generation issues they will need to address.


Bob McMullan is the ALP Member for Fraser and a former shadow minister.