One of the aims of governments introducing far-reaching change is obvious: to see new laws bedded down and survive long enough to gain widespread acceptance. Progressive governments, especially, hope for the public's approval because they realise that, from a progressive and democratic point of view, extensive support is the only game in town.
Governments attempting regressive change, on the other hand, quite often need only rely on seeking the approval of the loudest and most powerful. Even if this method should fail at the ballot box, it might achieve the bulk of its purpose if a new government, claiming to be progressive, acquiesces by leaving most of the unjust legislation in place.
The frustrating and worrying aspect of the industrial relations discourse in 2007 was how appallingly narrow it was. For the most part, discussion centred on AWAs, erosion of penalty rates, and the Coalition's removal of the no-disadvantage test.
These were important (and repugnant) aspects of WorkChoices, but they were not its driving force. The philosophical mainstay of the Coalition's attack was its comprehensive undermining of union collective action.
WorkChoices made Australia the world's only western democracy where employers faced a fine if they made agreements that allowed union officials into a work site. Similar provisions, such as union training, were to be prohibited content; in Howard's Australia, employees or unionists could be fined for even asking for such a provision.
These and innumerable, similar aspects of WorkChoices constitute the proper context from which an assessment should be made of any legislation claiming to repeal or ameliorate the Howard Government's IR laws.
As the name suggests, the new Government's Transition to Forward with Fairness Act, which commenced on 28 March, is a stop-gap framework designed to address some immediate problems about replacing AWAs with Individual Transitional Employment Agreements, reinstituting a no-disadvantage test, and covering outworkers with relevant awards. It would be unreasonable to expect a transitional act to contain all the sorts of measures citizens would want to see in a thorough overhaul of the Howard legislation.
Having said this, it is disappointing that some other changes were not made in the interim. It is difficult to see, for example, what delay or other problem would have been caused by abolishing the prohibited content section of the Act.
But more broadly there are some worrying signs that the Labor Government will interpret — or has already interpreted — the 2005-07 grass-roots campaign