Public Sector Industrial Relations Under the Howard Government¹

Abstract

Under Labor there was a very significant movement away from the traditional public administration focus of the public service towards ‘managerialism’ and ‘marketisation ‘. With the election of the Coalition Government these trends continued but in a much more extreme form. Moreover, there has been a dramatic marginalisation of the union movement with a strong emphasis on individualism as the appropriate basis for the employment relationship, and this does represent a significant break with the past. Much of the Coalition's reform agenda has its basis in industrial relations reform which was ope rationalised in the provisions of the Workplace Relations Act but many would argue that the die had been cast by Labor. Thus it will be important to consider the extent to which the Coalition's neo-liberal public sector agenda is more extreme than that of Labor. This article focuses largely on the Australian Public Service with some attention to certain Government Business Enterprises. It outlines the Howard Government's plan for reform and the steps undertaken to date. This will be followed by some consideration of the impact of these changes for unions in the public sector and some attempt will be made to assess the extent to which the resulting situation differs from that which would have prevailed had Labor remained in office.