Industrial Relations and Queensland Public Policy
The Demise of Sovereignty?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S1321816600001550Keywords:
Industrial relations, Queensland public policy, unitary industrial system, national interestAbstract
On 11 November 1996 the Premier of Victoria, Jeff Kennett announced that his government would refer its powers over industrial relations to the Commonwealth. This decision, he said, “reflects the overwhelming consensus among industrial relations experts that a single industrial relations system is both desirable and inevitable”. The announcement was greeted enthusiastically by the proposed recipients: to the Prime Minister, John Howard, it was a “practical example of cooperative Commonwealth/State relations” and “a ringing endorsement of the Federal Government's industrial relations reforms”. The Minister for Industrial Relations, Peter Reith (who was credited with successful negotiation of the intergovernmental agreement on the terms of referral) hailed it as “a major micro-reform initiative.” Media commentary was only marginally less optimistic. It was reported that the other key national players — the ACTU, employers, the federal Opposition and the Democrats — also welcomed the move to a unitary industrial system. Benefits were seen in the elimination of duplication and administrative hurdles, making the state more attractive for overseas investors, and in the provision of an enhanced safety net for Victorian workers. The general theme of the coverage was summed up in the comment that the decision was “a victory for the national interest”.
References
”A statement by the Premier of Victoria, Mr Kennett”; “Prime Minister's Press Release historic referral of Victoria's industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth”; P. Reith, “The referral of Victoria's industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth”, Department of Industrial Relations' internet site: http:/www.nla.gov.au/dir/media. The mechanism for referral is Section 51 (xxxvii) of the Constitution, which provides that the Commonwealth parliament may make laws in respect of matters referred by the Parliament of any state.
Wilcox, Innes, “Premier makes the best of a loss”, The Age, 12 November 1996; also Michael Millett and Brad Norington, “Howard hails historic deal on IR powers”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 November 1996; John Short and Sid Morris, “Kennett gives IR powers to Canberra”, Australian, 12 November 1996.
Painter, Joanne, “Kennett cedes IR powers”, The Age, 12 November 1996. The NSW non-Labor Opposition, however, indicated that it would follow the Kennett lead: Sydney Morning Herald, 12 November 1996.
Santoro, Santo, Press Release, 11 November 1996; Courier-Mail, 12 November 1996, p. 2
example, For, Fox, Carol B., Howard, William A. and Pittard, Marilyn l., Industrial Relations in Australia: Development, Law and Operation, Longman, Melbourne, 1995, ch. 12.
The remainder of employees are ‘award-free’. Wages Policy Branch, Department of Industrial Relations, “DIR Estimate of Award and Agreement Coverage of Non-Farm Employees”, August 1996; Australian Bureau of Statistics, Award Coverage, Australia, Catalogue No. 6315.0, May 1985, May 1990. The “more than 65%” quoted by Santoro (above) appears to be an approximation of the proportion of workers covered by awards who are subject to Queensland determinations [actually 66%].
Report of the Committee of Review into Australian Industrial Relations Law and Systems, [Hancock Report], AGPS, Canberra 1985, pp. 264–268
Ibid., pp. 281, 285.
Government, Queensland, “Submission to the Committee of Review into Australian Industrial Relations Law and Systems”, February 1984, pp. 35–42.
Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1961–1987 of Queensland [Hanger Report], Brisbane, Government Printer, 1988, p. 89.
Industrial (Commercial Practices) Act 1984 (amended substantially in 1985); Electricity Authorities Industrial Causes Act 1985; Electricity (Continuity of Supply) Act 1985; Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1985. See generally, Howard Guille, “Industrial Relations in Queensland”, Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 27, no. 3, September 1985, pp. 383–396
Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act and Another Act Amendment Act 1987. The legislation was amended with a view to facilitating the making and certification of agreements in April 1989.
Australian Industrial Relations Commission, Transport Workers' Union of Australia v R.G. and S.D. Gerke and others, Brisbane, 7 April 1989, Print H7653. It was later claimed that the Queensland government provided over $100,000 to fund the employer's legal costs: “Speech Notes for the Hon. N.G. Warburton, MLA, Minister for Employment, Training and Industrial Relations”, Industrial Relations Society, Brisbane, 11 May 1990. Discussions undertaken by the author with senior officers of the then Queensland Department of Industrial Affairs confirmed that a prime consideration in drafting the VEA legislation was the need to protect them from Federal awards.
Warburton, N.G., Second Reading Speech, Queensland Legislative Assembly, Hansard, 17 May 1990, pp. 1647–1652.
For example the brochure, Queensland's Industrial Relations Legislation: the new flexibility, issued in 1990.
Department of Employment, Vocational Education, Training and Industrial Relations [DEVETIR], Annual Report, 1993–94, p. 32; DEVETIR's 1994–95 Annual Report (p. 32) stated: “The Government is committed to defending Queensland's industrial relations system against federal award incursion, especially in the public sector”.
Hawke, R. J. L., “Towards a Closer Partnership”, speech to the National Press Club, Canberra, 19 July 1990.
Special Premiers' Conference, Agenda Papers: Attachment E — “Co-operation in Industrial Relations”, Brisbane, October 1990.
Intergovernmental News, vol. 3, no. 1, November 1990, p. 3; vol. 3, no. 4, August 1991, p. 1.
Dabscheck, B., “Enterprise bargaining: a new province for law and order?”, In B. Dabscheck, G. Griffin and J. Teicher (eds), Contemporary Australian Industrial Relations: Readings, Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1992, pp. 309–323.
Industrial Relations Legislation Amendment Act 1992, s. 134E. Introducing the legislation, the Minister for Industrial Relations, Peter Cook, said: “There is now a consensus in Australia on the need to focus industrial relations more directly on the enterprise and workplace.” Senate, Weekly Hansard, 7 May 1992, p. 2519.
Industrial Relations Act Amendment Act 1992.
Industrial Relations Act 1991 (NSW); Industrial Relations Amendment (Enterprise Agreements and Workplace Freedom) Act 1992 (Tas); Workplace Agreements Act 1993 (WA); Industrial and Employee Relations Act 1994 (SA). The WA Act also permitted individual workplace agreements.
Richard Mitchell and Richard Naughton, “Radical Labour Law Reform and the Demise of the Victorian Industrial Relations System”, New Zealand Journal of Industrial Relations, vol. 19, no. 3, December 1994, pp. 275–288.
Industrial Relations Amendment Act (No.2) 1992
Cook, Peter, Minister for Industrial Relations, “Offering Choice to Australian Workers”, Media Release, 2 December 1992.
Industrial Relations Reform Act 1993 (effective 1 March 1994).
Foley, Matt, “Towards Parallel Systems — Developments in State and Federal Industrial Relations Law and Practice”, paper presented at the Bar Association of Queensland Conference on Industrial Relations, Gold Coast, 9 April 1994, p. 14.
Ibid., p. 18: “Inappropriate use of the corporations power in the future could be detrimental to a State jurisdiction since at one stroke the whole corporate sector would be translated to the federal jurisdiction…”
High Court of Australia, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia v the Commonwealth, (Matters nos. M46, A18 and P16 of 1994), 4 September 1996.
Introducing the bill into parliament, Foley stated that it “unashamedly takes up provisions of the Commonwealth Industrial Relations Reform Act, namely minimum entitlements for employees; the promotion of bargaining and the facilitation of agreements with a fair and equitable award system as a safety net”. Queensland Legislative Assembly, Hansard, 17 February 1994, p. 9518
Foley, , “Ministerial Statement: Queensland Industry [sic] Relations System”, Queensland Legislative Assembly, Hansard, 9 September 1994, p. 9518.
Foley, , “Towards Parallel Systems”, p. 16.
Mitchell and Naughton, “Radical Labour Law Reform”, p. 283; Anthony Forsyth, “Employee Relations (Amendment) Act 1994 (Vic)”, Australian Journal of Labour Law, vol. 8, no. 2, August 1995, pp. 154–165.
In August 1996 it was calculated that the state system covered only 15% of Victorian workers: Wages Policy Branch, “DIR Estimate of Award and Agreement Coverage”.
Mitchell and Naughton, “Radical Labour Law Reform” p. 287.
Santoro, Santo, “Workplace Relations Bill 1996”: Second Reading Speech, 26 November 1996.
Harris, Stuart, Federalism and Australian Foreign Policy, Working Paper 1992/4, Department of International Relations, Australian National University, Canberra, August 1992.
