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What do the Rudd Government’s workplace relations changes mean for business? Rob Stevenson LLB(Hons)(QUT), LLM(Environmental Resources Law) (QUT) Accredited Specialist (Workplace Relations) Principal, Australian Workplace Lawyers ___________________________________________________________________________ A. INTRODUCTION Over the last 15 years in Australia, there has been a movement away from the historically entrenched industrial concepts of centralised wage fixation, conciliation and arbitration and award coverage to a greater emphasis on workplace bargaining. The pace of change accelerated in 2006 when the Howard Government significantly amended the Workplace Relations Act 1996. Despite being watered down before the last election, the “Work Choices” laws represented arguably the most significant change in Australian industrial relations law since federation. As Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd promised before the last election that he would “rip up” Work Choices, but does “Forward with Fairness” reflect this promise or are the proposed changes more “evolutionary” than “revolutionary”? This paper will outline: -
key changes to the industrial landscape created by Work Choices; -
the components of the Forward with Fairness regime including the new National Employment Standards, modern awards, industrial umpire, agreement making and termination laws; and -
key issues that a business will have to consider in its legal relationship with its employees under the new system. This paper does not purport to be an exhaustive expose of the new laws. Rather, the intention is to give practitioners an overview of the important changes occurring in our system of industrial relations to assist practitioners in understanding how the workplace relations system might apply to their clients and in identifying issues for clients to address. Download the full document here.
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