Australian Financial Review http://www.afr.com.au/content/991025/news/news2.html October 25, 1999 Reith's third wave: goodbye to awards By Stephen Long and Kath Cummins The Federal Minister for Workplace Relations, Mr Peter Reith, has stepped up his push for a third wave of industrial relations reforms based on the corporations power of the Constitution, with the Australian Democrats supporting his push for a uniform national system. Mr Reith announced yesterday that he had established a departmental task force to push the proposal. And the Democrats' industrial relations spokesman, Senator Andrew Murray, affirmed his strong support for using the corporations power to replace separate State and federal industrial relations systems with a single, unified regime. Mr Reith said he and Senator Murray had already held some preliminary discussions on the issue. The Government's model would replace the award system with a set of minimum standards on wages and conditions underpinned by the corporations power. It is pitching the plan to the Democrats as a way for workers to avoid falling through the cracks of a dwindling award system. But while backing the Government's "third wave" based on the corporations power, Senator Murray said categorically that there would be no deal with the Federal Government on its existing Workplace Relations Amendment Bill. In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, he ruled out any prospect of a negotiated package of the kind struck between Mr Reith and the former Australian Democrats leader, Ms Cheryl Kernot, for the Government's first-round legislation. "I am not going to deal with a package on this," he said. "I have no incentive to. You have to understand it's a completely different political situation. "Last time round, they could have gone to a double dissolution. And the economic imperative [for what the Government is proposing] just isn't there. We have low interest rates, rising employment and the lowest round of industrial disputation on record. "As it stands, it will be dealt with as the legislation is, before the Senate. [And] I'm not going to be looking to negotiate a passage." Senator Murray described the duplication involved in separate State and federal industrial relations systems as ridiculous. But he qualified his support for a unified system that made increased use of the corporations power by saying it was imperative the Government gained mirroring legislation from the States. This is a politically daunting task for Mr Reith, given that four out of six States are now Labor-controlled. And it would, in effect, rule out the use of the corporations power by the Federal Government as the driver for a radical deregulation of the labour market. "We support the investigation of this issue because we want to see as many workers as possible covered by awards, and this figure is diminishing fast," Senator Murray said. "I am supportive of using [corporations power] to provide a unitary system, provided you get the States on side." He said it was essential to ensure the States passed mirroring legislation to ensure workers employed by unincorporated businesses did not "slip through the cracks" and that gaining the States' approval would provide appropriate checks and balances. Mr Reith told the Industrial Relations Society of Australia's annual convention in Perth at the weekend that use of the corporations power would permit a continued role for awards and the [Australian Industrial Relations] Commission, unions and employer bodies but under a different statutory framework. "The focus would continue to be on enterprise and workplace agreement-making, with the underlying protection of a national safety net," Mr Reith said. "It is a proposal which has some intrinsic benefits for both employers and employees. "Those benefits, if we are being objective, should cross, at least in part, political divides." He cited Senator Murray's view and a 1996 speech by Victoria's new Premier, Mr Steve Bracks, supporting in principal the concept of a single national system of industrial relations as evidence that cross-party consideration of such issues is a possibility. Senator Murray also said he believed there was scope for some common ground between Labor States and the Federal Government on the issue. 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