A Simple Plan for Workplace Regulation?

By Andrew Stewart

The government claims its proposed changes to industrial laws will make for a "simpler" process of regulation., both by "streamlining" existing federal processes and by "eliminating the complex, costly and inefficient overlap" of state and federal regulation.

There are two points to be made about this claim. Firstly, although the present complexity in workplace regulation can I part be attributed to structural factors, including the awkward interaction of federal and state responsibilities under the Constitution, it is as least as much a product of the way in which federal laws have been drafted over the pat 15 years.

The second point is that neither the specific changes announced by the Prime Minister, nor the government's proposed use of the corporations power to "move towards" a national system, will do anything to simplify workplace regulation - unless some very hard decisions are taken.

The notion of them simplifying flies in the face of all previous actions, starting with the 1996 Workplace Relations Act (a massive document) following up with changes proposed and defeated since (the mandatory secret ballots bill ran to 45 pages and would add 49 new sections to the WRA), there a re lots of other backlog bills, plus the regulations for the building industry involve a 255 clause bill. Maybe the government would set itself to not add hundreds of new sections, but to have a shorter and more accessible act would involve being prepared to trust decision-makers (the AIRC or others) to operate with reference to general guidelines rather tha spelling everything out. I don't think so somehow.

(CCH Industrial Law News; issue 7, 20 July 2005)