It’s no mystery why Labor wants its industrial relations changes to pass before parliament adjourns on December 1.
Even though union influence has withered, the party of the worker has always wanted to put its stamp on the system early in its term.
Under Gough Whitlam, the public service became the pacesetter of wage rises. The rampant inflation and resulting unemployment of the 1970s led to a more cautious approach when Labor returned to government in 1983 under Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. Labor enacted an innovative structure known as the Prices and Incomes Accord to lessen strikes and to fight inflation. Under the Accord, wage claims were moderated because of the provision of the ”social wage”, which including improved government benefits.
And with the rise of Kevin Rudd in 2007 came the abolition of John Howard’s WorkChoices.
Now Labor is edging the IR system back towards industry-wide bargaining, a substantial modification of the system brought in by Keating. But many employers remain opposed to a return to anything resembling pattern bargaining, where one wage award sets a trend for other workers in the same industry.
The December 1 timeline gives the changes only five weeks to be debated. The government not willing to divide bill into component parts, multi-employer bargaining, and that’s where the complications arise.
While Labor, with Green support, is just one short of the 39 Senate votes to pass legislation, finding that one extra vote on this issue might poses a challenge.
ACT independent senator David Pocock has already expressed reservations about Labor’s moves to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. That body is, to its advocates, an essential industry watchdog. To opponents, it is a hostile antagonist to the worker. (Either way, the commission’s feud with the Construction Forestry Maritime Mining and Energy Union has taken on the flavour of the Hatfields v the McCoys.)
Others unwilling to be rushed on big IR changes include One Nation, Tasmanian independent senator Jacqui Lambie and her colleague Tammy Tyrrell.
It might be too cynical to link the reluctance of crossbenchers to their discontent over the ceiling on staffing levels imposed by Labor. But saying that, because of staff cuts, more time is needed to examine controversial legislation? Certainly has ring of plausibility and reasonableness.
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Mark Sawyer is a journalist with extensive experience in print and digital media in Sydney, Melbourne and rural Australia.