After ‘Working Nation’: The Future of Work Debate

Abstract

This article provides a critical commentary on the White Paper on employment and unemployment, Working Nation. The central argument is that we need to renew the debate about the future of employment, unemployment and work in Australia. The White Paper does not provide a sufficient basis for this debate. It openly abandons the full employment objective without any clear identification of the kind of social and economic arrangements which might replace it. While it does include a number of progressive policy reforms, the overall direction is at best inadequate and at worst unjust. In the debate which must follow the publication of the White Paper a key challenge will be to tackle the question: how should we distribute work and income in Australia so as to broaden the possibilities of citizenship in the context of increasingly globalised social and economic relationships and increasingly threatening ecological constraints?