Time: 10:30h – 12:15h

Speaker : David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Griffith University, Australia

In 2005, the Australian government introduced one of the most radical legislative transformations in industrial relations seen in the western world in the past half century, a mixture of neoliberal and quasi-‘Stalinist’ reforms built on a promise of higher wages, higher productivity, lower interest rates and higher employment.
It did so riding an economic boom that had lasted for well over a decade and showed no sign of abatement.
Yet less than two years later, as the boom continued, the government was thrown out of office on the back of the second largest electoral swing to the Labor Party in over half a century.
This presentation analyses some of the reasons for such a turnaround and in particular:

• why did the former government undertake its industrial relations reform program, referred to as ‘WorkChoices’?
• how many people were affected by it?
• what was the impact of the ‘WorkChoices’ legislation on pay and conditions?
• what was its impact on employment and productivity?
• how did unions, employers and the former government campaign to defeat or defend WorkChoices?
• what role did WorkChoices play in the defeat of the former government?
• Is WorkChoices now dead or does its spirit live on in the new Labor government?