Editorial: High hopes for IR reform amount, in the end, to very little

It is extremely unlikely the federal government, and the employer groups who unanimously condemned the rejection of the "omnibus" industrial relations reform bill on Thursday, will ever acknowledge any responsibility for the lost opportunity this represents.

This is despite the fact if it had not been for an act of egregious overreach on the part of the government, inspired by behind the scenes pressure from employers, the outcome may have been very different.

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Key union leaders including Sally McManus and Michelle O'Neill were shocked when, on releasing the draft legislation late last year, the Attorney-General Christian Porter included clauses effectively abolishing the BOOT or "better off overall test". BOOT was intended to ensure workers could not be pressured into bargaining away existing rights and entitlements.

The Attorney-General's proposal would have streamlined the exemption process and made it easier for employers to cut pay and conditions using the coronavirus recession as an excuse.

This had not been discussed with union representatives during the extensive consultations involving business, workers and the government between last May and October.

When this proposal became public, the union movement and the ALP, already sceptical the same government which had fought so hard, so long, and so unsuccessfully for its "ensuring integrity bill" could come up with anything like Bob Hawke's historic Prices and Incomes Accord, cried foul.

The worst part is it had all begun with such high hopes. When the PM announced at the National Press Club on May 26, 2020, the government was shelving "preserving integrity" and would, instead, concentrate on reforms to overhaul an industrial relations system "no longer fit for purpose", labour leaders responded positively.

Ms McManus had already demonstrated good faith by working closely with the government on short term reforms to give businesses flexibility in responding to the pandemic. That good faith evaporated in an instant the moment the government unilaterally put the BOOT test on the block. After that it was all over bar the shouting, of which there has been quite a lot.

The end result is that while Australian workers, who have already been grievously battered by the events of the last 14-months, have not lost, nobody has really won.

Provisions that would have protected employees against wage theft have been discarded by the government in what appears to be a fit of pique, the enterprise bargaining process is as cumbersome as ever, and greenfields projects provisions which could have created thousands of new jobs will never see the light of the day.

And worst of all, this unfortunate exercise in apparent trickery, miscalculation, and over-reach has probably set back the cause of genuine, and mutually agreed, industrial relations reform for at least another decade.

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