Remaking Industrial Relations: A Unique Opportunity

As the Federal Government drafts new industrial relations legislation it is clear that a unique opportunity to shape labour law is present. The Remaking Industrial Relations Forum, held on 16^th June in Sydney, brought together leading Australian industrial relations and labour law researchers and policy practitioners to debate the fundamental question ‘what should an industrial relations system seek to achieve in contemporary Australia, and how can we get there?’ The Forum was based on the recent issue of the Economic and Labour Relations Review which included plenary papers from important figures in labour law who had previously led comprehensive reviews of industrial relations. The main speakers at the conference included Professors Margaret Gardner, John Niland, Keith Hancock and Fred Hilmer, as well as Murray Wilcox QC. State IR department heads also spoke about their experiences under changing IR systems.

Professor Gardner noted that the current situation presented a ‘Higgins Moment’ in which ‘we can lay down a new base of a system that should serve for many decades’. While there was much debate on exactly what a new system should look like there was consensus on two key points: that the current opportunity to build a fair IR system should not be wasted and that the new IR system shouldn’t be vulnerable to the political whims of the Government of the day.