The new prime minister has fewer economic levers to pull than previous Labor governments. That makes taking Australians into his confidence about the need for bolder change all the more important.
An old political maxim is to ‘never waste a crisis’, but sometimes a crisis isn’t enough.
The Hawke Labor government had a strong incentive to seek a new approach to industrial relations when it came to office.
National Archives of Australia
The Prices and Incomes Accord was a series of agreements between Labor and the ACTU where unions would moderate their wage demands in exchange for improvements in the ‘social wage’.
Unionists protesting the reduced role of the Industrial Relations Commission after the introduction of the work choices legislation in 2006.
Julian Smith/AAP
Even though enterprise bargaining agreements proved controversial when introduced, their use is actually in decline today.
The WorkChoices campaign was a rare and important success for the Australian union movement, but can it build on this success of eight years ago?
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