The 2005 reforms to the Workplace Relations Act 1996 will inevitably undermine collective bargaining, and place greater emphasis on individualised agreement-making. This article highlights various aspects of the new provisions that will substantially bolster the bargaining position of employers,...

A basic test of a labour law regime is the enforcement of minimum wage and other entitlements. This paper is concerned with the recovery of underpayments especially recovery of ‘small’ amounts by workers who are vulnerable in the marketplace. We gauge levels and quality of access to the...

The Howard government’s draconian Work Choices laws will soon be history. A change of government at the 2007 federal election means that Australian industrial relations legislation will continue to be a turbulent field, for some time yet. This review provides an account of the last piece of...

In March 2008, the Rudd Government started to dismantle Work Choices. The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Act 2008 (Cth) reintroduced agreement-making safeguards, and removed the option of making Australian Workplace Agreements. The legislation also provided...

In 2009, two major pieces of industrial legislation were enacted to give effect to the Labor Government’s commitment to replace Work Choices with laws for ‘Fair Work’. The Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) promises to bring greater stability and simplicity to Australia’s workplace relations...

In response to mounting community concern about the use of workplace agreements to erode employee conditions, the Howard Government has introduced substantial changes to the legal framework. These changes include a new Fairness Test and the rebadging of the two main institutions responsible for...

One of the principal objectives of the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cth) is to ensure that the primary responsibility for determining industrial relations outcomes rests with employers and employees. At the time of introducing the legislation, the Coalition Government made it clear that a...

The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Act 2008 (Cth) introduces three substantial reforms to the Australian workplace relations system. The first of these replaces the 'fairness test' for the assessment of statutory workplace agreements with a 'no disadvantage...

Following 13 years of Labor government at the Federal level a Liberal/National Party Coalition government was elected to office in the Australian general election of 1996. This government was subsequently re-elected in 1998, 2001, and again in 2004, before finally losing power in the 2007...

One of the aims of workplace relations reforms in Australia over nearly two decades has been to facilitate the creation of ‘simple’ enterprise agreements as a panacea for the complexity of the workplace relations system. Drawing on Schuck’s four features of complexity - technicality,...