bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Australian Labour Force Data: How Representative is the ‘Population Represented by the Matched Sample’?
Authors: Dixon Robert
Published: March 2013

This paper investigates two related matters. First, what proportion of the population is represented by the matched sample (i.e. by the gross flows data) in the Labour Force Survey, why is this proportion what it is and why does it vary over time? Second, given that around 20% of the population are not represented in the matched sample, how representative are labour market indices derived from the matched sample data and, if biases are present, what is the source and what are the implications of the bias?
Contracting Out: Promise and Performance
Authors: Quiggin John
Published: March 2013

In this paper, it is argued that the benefits of competitive tendering and contracting have been overestimated, and that many of the apparent benefits actually reflect transfers rather than efficiency gains. Moreover, if arrangements for competitive tendering and contracting yield an inappropriate allocation of risk, such policies can reduce welfare rather than enhancing it as is commonly claimed. A number of case studies are presented to illustrate the latter proposition. Finally, some recommendations are presented for improvements in policy with respect to competitive tendering and contracting.
Training Reform: Back to Square One?
Authors: Hampson Ian
Published: March 2013

A number of recent inquiries into Australia’s national training system have found it to be on the sick side. This article seeks the causes of this in the recent evolution of training policy, which commenced in the late 1980s. The article traces the demise of the first moderately interventionist National Training Reform Agenda, which union reformers played a role in shaping, through the increasing marketisation of training policy. Under the Liberal National Coalition, budget constraints and the short term interests of employers have increasingly driven training policy. The drift of policy is against the grain of prescriptions drawn from the international literature, which shows the need for interventionist measures to correct ‘market failure’, and to ensure adequate expenditure and the integrity of qualifications.
A Decade of Australian Economic Growth: Outcomes for the Labour Market
Authors: Stegman Trevor
Published: March 2013

The aim of this paper is to consider some of the issues raised by three recently published books: Unemployment: The Tip of the Iceberg edited by Mitchell and Carlson; The Price of Prosperity, edited by Saunders and Taylor; Work Rich, Work Poor edited by Borland, Gregory and Sheehan (referred to here as MC, ST and BGS) analysing recent trends in the Australian Labour Market.

For the decade since 1992, Australia has experienced a sustained rate of strong economic growth unprecedented in Australian economic history. This period of continuous strong growth in GDP has been accompanied by low inflation. (We might say that the low inflation has permitted the strong sustained growth because it has meant that the Reserve Bank of Australia has not seen the need over the period to impose the sort of draconian restrictive monetary policy of 1990-1.) The strong growth performance has been in the face of the Asian currency crisis from 1997, a recessed Japanese economy over the decade, slow growth in most of Europe, and some hesitations in the performance of the primary engine of world economic growth, the US economy.
Sisters Organising for Themselves: An Exploration of Women-Only Unions in Japan and South Korea
Authors: Broadbent Kaye
Published: March 2013

As early as the 1890s women in a diverse range of countries organised their own unions, some of which continue to the present. Almost a century later, women-only unions have been (re)-created in Japan and South Korea. Was this coincidence or a union organising strategy development in North Asia? What does the existence, and the contemporary formation, of women-only unions in Japan and South Korea mean? This preliminary study seeks to explore women-only unions and highlights women actively creating their own organisations in order to improve working conditions and provide women with a voice separate from the existing ‘malestream’ union movement which has largely ignored their concerns.
Asian Working Women and Agency: Their Voices
Authors: Caspersz Donella
Published: March 2013

The aim of this paper is to discuss the challenges of organising women workers in Asia, and to discuss how trade unions can facilitate their more effective participation in these movements. The paper is primarily informed by research undertaken with Southern Initiative on Globalization and Trade Union Rights (SIGTUR). Formed in Perth, Western Australia in 1991 and made up of delegates from India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, the Philippines, Hong Kong, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil, the aim of SIGTUR is to promote collaborative activity by independent trade unions in the ‘South’ or rather countries within the Asia-Pacific. The paper highlights the effects of neo-liberalism on workers and develop appropriate international responses.
Reductions in Aggregate Unemployment as ‘A Free Lunch’
Authors: Dixon Robert
Published: March 2013

This paper looks at the effects of changes in the age composition of the labour force on aggregate male and female unemployment rates. While it has been common to look at aggregate participation rate changes in terms of a weighted average over age groups this seems not to be the case for unemployment. We show in this paper that changes in the age composition of the labour force (driven mainly by changes in the age distribution of the population) has affected the aggregate unemployment rates in a systematic and, with hindsight, predictable manner. Amongst other things, we show that in the past decade or so, policy makers have benefited from a not inconsequential “free lunch” in that changes in the age composition of the labour force have been pulling the aggregate unemployment rates down below what it would otherwise be by around one percent of the labour force. We also show that this free lunch is now coming to an end.
Looking Back on Microeconomic Reform: A Sceptical Viewpoint
Authors: Quiggin John
Published: March 2013

Microeconomic reform dominated Australian economic policy from the early 1980s until the end of the 20th century. Despite strong claims of success, focusing on the economic expansion since 1992, and rapid productivity growth between 1993–94 and 1998–99, evidence of improvements in the performance of the economy as a whole is weak and inconclusive. For an adequate evaluation of the microeconomic reform period, it is necessary to distinguish several different phases of reform and to evaluate reforms on a case-by-case basis.
Flexitime and the Long-Hours Culture in the Public Sector: Causes and Effects
Authors: Peetz David , Allan Cameron
Published: March 2013

There has been a major international debate about the importance of work time change. One key aspect of this debate has been the extent and impact of extended work hours. In this paper we examine the effects of a flexitime system on excessive hours in a Queensland public service department. This study finds that, for some groups of workers, the introduction of the flexitime system directly contributed to the development of a long-hours culture. The long-hours culture developed as part of managerial prerogative and in the absence of adequate regulation. Our research also finds that employees reluctantly working long hours consistently reported negative effects on their working and non-working life.
Accounting and Accountability for Australian Federal Unions
Authors: Mourell Mark
Published: March 2013

The amendments to Schedule 1B of the Workplace Relations Act have given the government substantially new means of controlling the internal affairs of industrial organisations. At the government's behest, the Review of Current Arrangements for Governance of Industrial Organisation (the review), used concepts borrowed from the Corporations Act as a basis for recommendations regarding union accounts, accounting procedures, fiduciary obligations of office-holders and organisational rules. This study is a critique of the review and the consequent amendments. It argues that notions borrowed from the Corporations Act are inappropriate for unions and will cause problems for them. The amendments also contradict the government's avowed policy of deregulation of labour market institutions.
Work Choices in Overview: Big Bang or Slow Burn?
Authors: Stewart Andrew
Published: March 2013

The Work Choices legislation represents a concerted attempt to tilt the balance of labour regulation in favour of employers. It does this by allowing them to offer agreements that reduce or eliminate award or statutory entitlements, by making it harder for both workers and unions to contest management decisions, and by sidelining the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. It also seeks to ‘move towards’ a national system of regulation by providing that the majority of employers will be exclusively subject to federal rather than State regulation, at least for some purposes. Yet for all the radical nature of many of the changes, this is not the ‘big bang’ it might have been. Many features of the old arbitration system have been retained and there are genuine compromises at the heart of some of the changes. It also remains to be seen just how quickly employers will move to exploit the opportunities the new legislation offers, given its complexity, opposition from unions, and indeed the natural pragmatism or conservatism of many managers — and whether this will prompt further intervention by a government that appears uncomfortable with leaving it to employers to make their own choices.
Unfair Dismissal Law and Work Choices: From Safety Net Standard to Legal Privilege
Authors: Chapman Anna
Published: March 2013

This article examines the amendments made to the Australian system of unfair dismissal law by the federal Work Choices Act. The main theme underlying those changes is one of contraction. Notably, a much larger proportion of the Australian labour force will now not have recourse to challenge their dismissal on the basis that it was “harsh, unjust or unreasonable”. This is the effect of the Work Choices exemption of corporate employers with up to 100 employees, the operational reasons exemption, the exemption of seasonal workers and the extension of the qualifying period from three to six months. It is also the effect of moving towards a national system of unfair dismissal.
Long Working Hours in Australia: Working-Time Regulation and Employer Pressures
Authors: Campbell Iain
Published: March 2013

In Australia, the proportion of full-time employees engaged in long hours, often very long hours, of paid work is relatively large and has been growing larger over the past two decades. This article describes and explains existing data and discussion in Australia, within a cross-national context. Primarily drawing on official labour force data, it begins by examining the proportion of employees engaged in long hours, trends in long work hours, and selected characteristics of the long hours workforce. It then links the discussion to overtime and the peculiar prominence of what is called ‘unpaid’ overtime. Growth in unpaid overtime seems to be the main component in the increase in the proportion of full-time employees working long hours. In seeking to explain these developments, the article describes the framework of formal working-time regulation and identifies several channels along which trends to long hours, whether based on paid or unpaid overtime, are able to flow. It then looks at the way in which the opportunities opened up by the deficiencies in regulation are taken up by employees and employers. It suggests that the key factor in explaining the development of long hours in Australia is employer pressure within the framework of weak working-time regulation.
Workers’ Education and Political Consciousness: A Case Study from South Africa
Authors: Cooper Linda
Published: March 2013

This article poses the question, who or what ‘teaches’ workers political consciousness? It argues that this question cannot be answered in the abstract, but must be located in historical context. Drawing on a case study of a South African local government trade union, it argues that radical education traditions within the labour movement remain, although the trade union movement has lost much of the militancy that characterised its early years, and its education work has been weakened and compromised. The case study union’s education programmes are ideologically directive and transformative in intent. Radical learning does not only take place in these organised spaces, however; members’ participation in ongoing union activities develops their political understanding and working class identity, while moments of mass action ‘teach’ workers not only about tactics, but also about political and economic power.
War, Racism and Industrial Relations in an Australian Mining Town, 1916–1935
Authors: Gregson Sarah
Published: March 2013

The goldmining town of Kalgoorlie in Western Australia has been the site of race rioting on three occasions — in 1916, 1919 and 1934. These outbursts have typically been examined as separate events, but, analysed together, they provide an opportunity to see racism, and anti-racism, as historical and social processes. In all these riots, returned soldiers, organised by a leadership often drawn from the officer class, played a significant part in harassing migrants and promoting White Australia. Through this lens, an important corrective to the dominant explanation of the White Australia policy is suggested. While most historians of Australian racism portray immigration restriction as a demand successfully won by the labour movement in defence of white workers’ jobs, the Kalgoorlie race riots expose a distinctly conservative case for employer ‘divide and rule’, anti-migrant propaganda and racist violence. Concomitantly, the local labour movement found that racial division among their ranks was a recipe for industrial defeat.
The Contemporary Growth Regime Has Been Ensured by the Australian State's Mutations (at Least until Now)
Authors: Chester Lynne
Published: March 2013

With the ascendancy of neoliberalism, the Australian state has not only remained strongly interventionist but has also expanded its sphere of influence and scope of activity. This is contrary to claims of a reduced, withered or slimmed neoliberal state. The Australian state's interventions have become increasingly varied in the overwhelming pursuit of structural competitiveness. It has developed an extensive ‘micro-structuring’ role, particularly through the creation of new regulatory instruments and institutions, but has not relinquished its economic ‘macro-structuring’ role notwithstanding changes to macroeconomic policy priorities. The Australian state's interventions have shaped all institutional forms comprising the mode ofrégulationthat guides and supports the accumulation regime. This article discusses the reconfiguration of the Australian state and the forms of its ongoing interventions which have secured and sustained the contemporary growth regime.
Housing and the Global Financial Crisis: US versus Australia
Authors: Stapledon Nigel
Published: March 2013

In the housing cycle which started in 1996, Australian house prices have risen more than those in the US, prima facie suggesting that Australian prices should fall sharply. This paper questions that simple hypothesis. The reasons explored are: Australian prices have risen significantly less than those in coastal California, the more valid comparison; the Australian housing finance system contains fewer of the structural weaknesses of the US system; fundamentals in the form of the decline in real interest rates explain most, but not all, of the price rise; and macroeconomic conditions for housing in Australia are more favourable to weathering the global financial crisis.
What Can Data on Educational Outcomes Reveal regarding Australian Children’s Right to Develop ‘to Their Fullest Potential’?
Authors: Redmond Gerry
Published: March 2013

Is Australia fulfilling its obligations towards its children, in particular fostering their development to their fullest potential, in accordance with its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child? This article addresses this complex question by elaborating three alternative conceptualisations of the right to development to one's fullest potential, based on the literature on human rights principles, and on the writings of the philosophers John Rawls, Michael Walzer, and Amartya Sen. The analysis suggests that while Australia performs well in comparison with other rich countries according to indicators of educational achievement, disparities in educational outcomes are large, implying that many children fail to realise their right to education to their fullest potential. This is not surprising. More surprising is the contrast between the diligence with which educational outcomes in Australia are measured, and the lack of accurate information on public resource inputs (except at the most highly aggregated levels) to achieve those outcomes. The paper concludes that while the measurement of student outcomes is an important step in the realisation of all Australian children's right to education to their fullest potential, the failure to accurately monitor resource inputs represents an equal failure by Australian governments to protect and promote children's rights.
Globalisation and the Commodification of Labour: Temporary Labour Migration
Authors: Rosewarne Stuart
Published: March 2013

There has been a qualitative shift in the character of international labour migration with increased temporary labour migration. With circumscribed employment rights, the increased significance of temporary migrant workers underscores arguments that globalisation has engendered a more profound commodification of labour. The instrumentalist approach, especially of international financial institutions in promoting temporary labour migration as a panacea for development, reinforces this impression. Encapsulated in migration-development discourse, labour migration, like other commodities, is presented as a means of generating export revenue for the South. Karl Polanyi's critique of this market-defined construct of labour as a commodity, when labour can only ever be a fictitious commodity, provides a basis for contesting the representation of labour in the migration-development discourse. However, recourse to a Marxist method is held to be essential if we are to move beyond an appreciation of the process in order to interrogate the rationale that is driving the transformation of labour.
From Blackbirds to Guestworkers in the South Pacific. Plus ça change…?
Authors: Connell John
Published: March 2013

Labour migration from the Pacific to Australasia has experienced two distinct phases with acute structural similarities. Late nineteenth century migration brought Melanesian migrants to Queensland cane plantations, notably from the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). A century later, early twenty-first century agricultural shortages took migrants from several island states to New Zealand and Australia. Migrants moved from semi-subsistence agricultural systems — where income generation was trivial — in search of incomes, goods and experience(s). Forced migration gave way to conscious choice. Similarities in the organisation of recruitment, acquisition of income and skills and improved material well-being attend both phases. Women have been more likely to participate in the second phase. Overall outcomes have been unequal with the principal gains accrued in destinations rather than by the migrants or their home islands.
‘It’s a Discrimination Law Julia, But Not As We Know It’: Part 3-1 of the Fair Work Act
Authors: Rice Simon , Roles Cameron
Published: March 2013

At first glance, Part 3–1 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) seems to overlap with long-established anti-discrimination laws, offering protection against adverse, attribute-based conduct in employment. On close analysis, however, it turns out to be a new and quite different regime. Although the Fair Work Act offers a simple alternative to dated and complicated anti-discrimination laws, its provisions are at times overly-simple, raising uncertainty about how they will operate. Our analysis leads us to conclude that the approach to discrimination protection in the Fair Work Act, while an important addition to the remedies available to Australian workers, is compromised by failing to take account of lessons learned in the long history of anti-discrimination law.
Labour, Commodities and the Labour Market: A Heterodox Perspective
Authors: White Graham
Published: March 2013

The article sheds light on the proposition that labour is a commodity by considering from a fundamental theoretical perspective whether labour is subject to the same market forces which apply to commodities in general in capitalist economies. It suggests that no spontaneous competitive force exists within capitalism that would adjust labour demand to its supply, in contrast to the adaptation of supply to the demand for commodities in general. This result is argued without reference to assumptions about inflexibilities or impediments in labour or other markets, or institutional features peculiar to ‘the labour market’. Its explanation of why labour markets do not clear is at odds with a core tenet underlying orthodox economic theory of the last century, which has acted as a fundamental benchmark for most theorising about labour to the present day. Rejection of this tenet is at the heart of a heterodox explanation of unemployment, the real wage and income distribution in capitalist economies.
Moral Sentiments and the Minimum Wage
Authors: Plowman David H. , Perryer Chris
Published: March 2013

Adam Smith is widely regarded as the father of political economics, and as one who provided the philosophical underpinnings of much of neoclassical economics. Since the mid-1970s there has been renewed interest in, and reinterpretation of, Smith’s work. This paper looks at two aspects of this reinterpretation, the first of which is Smith’s writing on wages. Smith was an advocate of high wages, a view that strongly contrasted with the received wisdom of the day. He considered that a wage which provided for a reasonable standard of living was essential for the development of an economy. The second aspect encompasses Smith’s notion of the subsistence wage which traces its historic lineage to the Greek philosophers. The paper concludes that Smith, the champion of ‘liberty’ and non-government interference in markets, would probably have supported the notion of minimum wages, such as are now mandated in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. Nevertheless, the mandating of minimum wages is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the achievement of living wage outcomes.
Deskilling: A New Discourse and Some New Evidence
Authors: Fraser Doug
Published: March 2013

This article provides a brief introduction to a research program which has been under way since 2007 to examine, using data from a large-sample panel survey, whether jobs in Australia are becoming more or less skilful over time. It redefines the debate on deskilling which ran through the 1970s and 1980s by expanding the focus beyond simple job quality to issues of current policy interest, notably the contribution of skill to innovation and productivity. To map this kind of dynamism it is necessary to use a metric capable of capturing change over short periods. This is achieved by adding a third dimension, skill-intensity, to Spenner’s classic definition of skill in terms of two loosely related constructs, worker autonomy/control and substantive job complexity. Data drawn from the first eight waves of HILDA are analysed to demonstrate that this metric is capable of capturing statistically significant change in the average skill content of jobs over much shorter periods than was possible with the metrics used in earlier decades. The broadly parallel aggregate trendlines for skill-intensity and autonomy/control suggest that these two dimensions are linked in the way Spenner suggests, even though major discrepancies appear between them in some industries and occupations.
Exploring Skill Ecosystems in the Australian Meat Processing Industry: Unions, Employers and Institutional Change
Authors: Cooney Richard , Jerrard Marjorie , Donohue Ross , Kimberley Nell
Published: March 2013

This article discusses the concept of the skill ecosystem in the context of the network oriented literature on learning and skill acquisition. Three critical features of skill ecosystems are identified and then applied to an analysis of the abattoir sector of the Australian meat processing industry. The analysis highlights the important role of the employee union in the skill ecosystem, including maintaining a flow of new entrants into the sector. The article then examines the impact of major institutional change, through the deregulation of industrial relations, on the ecosystem. It concludes by discussing the applicability of the skill ecosystem concept to a mature, low-skill industry such as meat processing and then draws some conclusions about the limitations of the skill ecosystem concept itself.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement: Contradictions in Australia and in the Asia Pacific Region
Authors: Ranald Patricia
Published: March 2013

The Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) is currently being negotiated between the US, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Peru, Chile, Vietnam and Malaysia. The TPPA is intended to multilateralise the bilateral legally binding agreements the US has with four of these countries, including Australia, as the building block for a legally binding Free Trade Agreement in the Asia Pacific area. The TPPA re-opens many of the issues debated in the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement in 2004. These include pressures from US industry groups for changes to Australian regulation like the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, regulation and labelling of genetically engineered foods and local content rules for Australian media. The paper analyses the endurance of the agenda despite the changes of government in the US and Australia since 2004, and discusses the contradictions and uncertainties of the strategy in Australia and in the Asia Pacific.
Collective Bargaining as a Minimum Employment Standard
Authors: Adams Roy J.
Published: March 2013

Throughout the English-speaking world, collective bargaining has commonly been considered to be an option for workers discontent with the default system of management-determined conditions of work. In this article it is argued that, as a universally acclaimed human right, collective bargaining should be considered a minimum condition for everyone employed under standardised conditions of work. The government policy of offering workers a choice to bargain or to refrain from bargaining, in effect in countries such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, does not meet that standard. Just as the equity goal of governments is the absence of inequality based on traits such as sex and colour, the government bargaining policy goal should be universal collective bargaining. Anything short of universality should be considered a social problem in search of a more effective policy solution.
Australia’s Tax and Transfer System under Review: Evaluating Harmer and Henry
Authors: Bateman Hazel
Published: March 2013

Two timely reviews of Australia’s transfer and tax systems were commissioned by the incoming government in 2008, although the GST, tax exemption of superannuation payments to people aged over 60, and pre-announced personal income tax cuts were placed outside the scope of inquiry. Most of the recommendations of the Harmer Pension Review have been implemented, but most of the recommendations of the Henry Tax Review have not. The Henry recommendations provided for enhanced equity and efficiency through a broader and simplified base, concentrating revenue raising on personal and business income, private consumption, and economic rents from natural resources and land. They provide an integrated blueprint for ongoing debate over tax reform.
Climate Change and Global Development: Towards a Post-Kyoto Paradigm?
Authors: Goodman James
Published: March 2013

Climate change both reflects and transforms global development. Asymmetries of responsibility, impact and capacity reflect historical and current development hierarchies. At the same time, the imperative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions perversely empowers high-emitting newly industrialising counties. As inter-state negotiations enter a new post-Kyoto paradigm involving emissions reductions for ‘all Parties’ to the UN climate change convention, relations between industrial and industrialising countries, and more broadly between North and South, are re-orientated. This article charts these relations through two decades of United Nations climate negotiations, arguing the need to secure emissions reductions across the industrialising world opens up new possibilities for climate justice.
Sports Franchises, Events, and City Livability: An Examination of Spectator Sports and Crime Rates
Authors: Baumann Robert , Ciavarra Taylor , Englehardt Bryan , Matheson Victor A.
Published: March 2013

We estimate the impact of sporting events and franchises on local crime rates using the technique developed in Arellano and Bond (2001). For events, we consider the presence of Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Football League and National Hockey League franchises as well as whether a city held one of the respective championships, the Olympics, or World Cup matches. We find little to no evidence that sporting events or franchises are correlated with changes in either property or violent crime with two notable exceptions. The Olympics Games are associated with roughly a 10 per cent increase in property crimes while the Super Bowl is associated with a 2.5 per cent decrease in violent crime. On the whole, however, the presence of spectator sports does not seem to automatically carry with it any improvements in citywide criminal behaviour.
The Break-Up of the Eurozone?
Authors: Lucarelli Bill
Published: March 2013

The euro project is now at the threshold of disintegration as the fault-lines between the core/surplus countries and the peripheral/deficit countries experience a profound rupture. In the absence of political union or fiscal federalism, these centrifugal forces appear to be irreversible. It is difficult to envisage the current system, with its internal contradictions, surviving the crisis that now engulfs the entire eurozone. The present crisis is to a large extent the continuation of the longstanding neoliberal policies favoured by Germany, which have informed the creation of the euro. This article examines the historical context of the debt crisis and the institutional design of this flawed monetary edifice.
Her Rights at Work: The Political Persecution of Australia’s First Female Prime Minister
Authors: Summers Anne
Published: March 2013

On 24 June 2010 Julia Eileen Gillard became Australia’s first female prime minister. She had served as deputy prime minister to Kevin Rudd in the Labor government that was elected on 24 November 2007. As deputy prime minister she had enjoyed great popularity and although the means by which Gillard assumed the top job was controversial — and became more so over the course of time — initially her elevation was greeted with widespread enthusiasm. There was a palpable sense of history in the media coverage, with most outlets treat ing Gillard’s ascension as an important event, to be taken seriously. The public seemed pretty pleased as well. Her popularity rating was high. Many women and girls, especially, were thrilled at this milestone having been reached. A few weeks into the job, Gillard called an election, seeking to legitimise her position through the validation of a popular vote. The election, held on 21 August 2010, failed to deliver her an outright majority. However she was able to form a government by negotiating agreements with the Greens and three Independents.
The curse of accountability: Assessing relationships in the delivery of employment services
Authors: Nevile Ann
Published: March 2013

As governments move from being both a funder and provider of human services to a purchaser of services in private sector markets or quasi-markets, ensuring that providers do what they are supposed to do becomes more difficult. Agency theory and stewardship theory have been suggested as ways of overcoming this problem. This article argues that both are inadequate, particularly because they conceptualise the relationship as bilateral (government funding department and service provider), ignoring the role of clients in achieving organisational objectives. Co-production that recognises the role played by clients in the production of employment outcomes can provide a more useful way of thinking about relationships among key actors involved in the provision of employment services.
Award Restructuring: Possibilities and Portents
Authors: Plowman David H.
Published: March 2013

The major focus of contemporary industrial relations is award restructuring. This restructuring, with its potential to facilitate a better skilled, more flexible and more efficient workforce is integrally related to the National Wage determining process and the ACTU-ALP Accord. It is also a key to international competitiveness and the wellbeing of the manufacturing sector. In recent years the wage determination process has attempted to reduce those normative forces which industrial tribunals have institutionalized — in particular comparative wage justice and real wage maintenance. This attempt has created a number of tensions: control versus flexibility; cost of living versus productivity; centralism versus decentralism; paid rates versus minimum rates; supplementary payments versus over award payments; equity versus efficiency. The system’s capacity to resolve these tensions without merely returning to established wage settlement practices will determine the efficacy of the restructuring exercise. It will also shape the contours of industrial relations for the next decade.
A Decade of Keating: Prospects for External Recovery?
Authors: Phillips Shauna , Bewley Ronald , White Garry
Published: March 2013

Government policy has sought to counter a deteriorating current account deficit by a regime of high interest rates. This paper analyses this policy prescription and argues that less reliance on monetary policy is essential for containing external debt.
Change and Involvement at the Workplace: Evidence from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey
Authors: Green Roy
Published: March 2013

The April national wage decision doubted whether Australia’s industrial relations parties as yet possessed the “maturity” to conduct enterprise bargaining. This view is consistent with the traditional role of the Industrial Relations Commission and with the conclusions of the 1985 Hancock Report, which provided the rationale for a permanent regime of centralised wage-fixing in Australia. It is also supported to some degree by the results of the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, which show that, despite the accumulating pressure for change, most workplaces currently lack the necessary ‘infrastructure’ for bargaining and consultation at enterprise level. In particular, the failure of Australian management to involve workers and unions in change may be seen as a major impediment to further workplace reform. The fundamental question which arises for industrial relations policy is whether to accept the situation as it is and hope for progress through the slow but steady implementation of award restructuring, or whether to provide an external impetus for the development of a workplace infrastructure through the establishment of a new framework for enterprise bargaining combined with legislation to promote information-sharing and consultation at the workplace. The central thrust of this article is that the latter approach will more effectively foster a ‘strategic bargaining’ culture in Australia.
Structural Adjustment Issues in Papua New Guinea
Authors: Lodewijks John , Enahoro Diane , Argyrous George
Published: March 2013

Poor economic performance and the Bougainville mine closure have focused attention in PNG on the appropriate stabilization package and micro policies necessary to improve the country’s economic prospects. A package of structural adjustment “reforms”, strongly supported by the IMF and World Bank, have been introduced. This paper examines the applicability and desireability of implementing these “reforms”. Our paper suggests that PNG might profitably explore some alternative development options to the ones currently in vogue.
The Impact of Unions: On Economic Welfare: A Short Survey
Authors: Mulvey Charles
Published: March 2013

This paper examines a number of aspects of the economic impact of unions with particular emphasis on the exit/voice model proposed by Freeman and Medoff. It examines the reported effects of unions in quit rates and job tenure; productivity; wage dispersion and merit pay; employment; fringe benefits; technological change and profits.
Fightback in Perspective: What Difference Would it Make?
Authors: Nevile J.W.
Published: March 2013

This article examines the economic, as opposed to social, effects of the Fightback package and concludes that both beneficial and adverse effects of the tax measures have been exaggerated. The switch from various taxes to a GST will increase efficiency but only slightly and will have a neglible effect on labour supply and savings. Adverse effects on small business and on federal financial relationships will not have a large impact on the economy. The superannuation proposals will probably reduce savings. The most important effect of the package may be to increase unemployment as a result of the emphasis on enterprise bargaining combined with a determination to prevent any rise in the rate of inflation following the introduction of a GST.
Macroeconomic Effects of a Switch to Indirect Taxes: Some Evidence from the UK and the EC
Authors: Perkins J.O.N.
Published: March 2013

This paper considers the evidence from simulations with major econometric models of the UK and EC relating to the effects on the main macroeconomic variables of a switch towards indirect taxation. The conclusion from this evidence is that a switch from income tax towards indirect taxation tends to increase the price level, the rate of inflation, the current account deficit, and the public sector borrowing requirement, and to reduce the country’s net wealth, at any given level of real GDP. One especially important conclusion is that the increase in inflation is significantly due to the cut in income tax, and not only to the effects of the rise in indirect taxation; and that the effects on inflation of the cut in income tax tend to last longer than those of the rise in indirect taxation. If the government of the country making the switch in taxation tries to hold down the consequently higher inflation and the rise in the current account deficit by reducing economic growth, the adverse economic effects will be correspondingly greater — and this appears to be what happened in both Britain and New Zealand, the two OECD countries that have made a marked shift in tax structure in this direction over the past decade.
The Labor Government’s Industrial Relations Policy: Flexibility with Equity
Authors: Cook Peter
Published: March 2013

The fundamental objective of the Government’s industrial relations policy is to encourage and assist Australian companies and their employees to adopt work and management practices that will strengthen their capacity to compete successfully both in domestic and international markets. To this end we support co-operative and equitable workplace bargaining, with wage increases being linked to the reform of work practices and attitudes. Our support for decentralised bargaining is aimed at improving productivity by fostering a new workplace culture of striving for continuous improvement. We emphatically reject the view that such an outcome will be achieved by wholesale deregulation and reliance on unfettered market forces. The Government is committed, for both equity and efficiency reasons, to maintaining the Accord approach to wages policy. We are also committed to an independent Australian Industrial Relations Commission playing the vital role of protecting lower paid employees through the safety net of minimum award wages and conditions.
The Mixed Economy of Support for the Aged in Australia: Lessons for Privatisation
Authors: Saunders Peter , Fine Michael
Published: March 2013

This paper describes and analyses aspects of Australian income support and service arrangements for the aged in the context of broader issues relating to privatisation. It is argued that much of the welfare privatisation debate is overly simplistic and does not recognise the important role which the non-government sector already plays in aspects of support for the age. Analysis of income data shows, for example, that transfer income currently accounts for less than half of the income of the aged. The trend towards superannuation is apparent in the data, although some doubts are raised about the impact of superannuation expansion on the finance of population ageing. In the area of community services, the paper describes the development of policy over the last few decades in order to illustrate the complexity of existing arrangements. The switch from institutional to community care is identified as a major trend, particularly during the 1980s, and some of the implications of this development for privatisation are drawn out and analysed.
A Case for Public Sector Job Creation Schemes
Authors: Burgess John
Published: March 2013

It is recognised that for efficiency and equity reasons that governments need to implement active labour market programs (LMP). Such programs can help to improve the matching of labour supply and demand, reduce wage inflation pressures generated where labour markets are subject to supply shortages and bottlenecks, assist disadvantaged labour market participants obtain employment, help reduce poverty and income inequalities generated by the persistence of long-term unemployment, and they can raise overall productivity levels and living standards. What is at issue is not the need for LMP, but the type and mix of LMP required in Australia.

The government has embarked upon a substantially supply side orientated LMP aimed at improving the employment prospects of the unemployed. On the demand side this has been augmented by a private sector wage subsidy program (JOBSTART). Such a mix of LMP is inappropriate for addressing the labour market problems associated with a recession. The government should, as a matter of urgency, consider the immediate introduction of a public sector job creation scheme (PSJCS). The advantages of such a program include its potential to directly address the problem of long-term unemployment (LTU), assist disadvantaged communities and provide an effective work experience support for the plethora of supply side LMP. Such a program could be effectively delivered by utilising the existing administrative structures of the CES and local government.
How Pervasive is the “Going Rate”? Some Behavioural Insights into the Process of Enterprise Bargaining
Authors: Fells R.E. , Skeffington R.M.
Published: March 2013

This paper examines the significance of information about “going rates” in the resolution of issues by negotiation. In addition to the strategic factors which negotiators must consider this paper identifies a behavioural factor, the mutually prominent alternative, which also has the effect of drawing negotiators towards the going rate as a settlement for their own negotiations. The results of research based on an experimental negotiation confirm the importance of going rate information on negotiation outcomes. This finding, and its explanation in terms of the going rate adopting the characteristics of a mutually prominent alternative, has significance in the context of enterprise bargaining; it would suggest that outcomes negotiated at the enterprise level may not be as egocentric as some advocates of a deregulated labour market might suggest.
Macroeconomic Policy for Australia in the 1990s
Authors: Harcourt G.C.
Published: March 2013

The size of the deficit has little if any significance as an indicator of short-run macroeconomic policy. Government expenditure should be determined by longer term aspirations. Taxation (and other revenue measures) must be used, along with monetary policy, for short-term economic management, but whether revenue should be at a level that results in a deficit or not depends on many things including the composition of government expenditure and the state of the economy. At present, our economy requires a brake on total consumption expenditure and this may require a rise in taxation levels despite the high current level of unemployment. A high rate of capital accumulation is essential to change the structure of production and to increase output and productivity, but the brake on consumption must be eventually relaxed. Without an expectation of healthy consumption growth there will not be an ongoing high rate of accumulation in the private sector.
The Road Back to Full Employment
Authors: Argy Fred
Published: March 2013

Over the last two years the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) carried out a major project: a vision for the Australian economy and practical policies to attain that vision by the year 2000. One of the key goals was to halve the official unemployment rate. The results are outlined in this article. Emphasis is placed on a policy and incentive structure that is skewed in favour of exports, productive investment and savings, a more structurally efficient and flexible labour market, responsible aggregate wage outcomes and acceptance that growth is only sustainable if the short—term costs of structural reform are borne equitably.
Long Term Unemployment: The Case for Policy Reform
Authors: Chapman Bruce
Published: March 2013

Long term unemployment is now Australia’s most difficult and costly labour market problem. This paper argues the case for a different policy reorientation to what has been followed in the past. The first conclusion is that in the absence of a substantial reorientation of policy long term unemployment will remain very high, with the absolute number staying above the level inherited from the 1982/83 recession — which was until the current recession the highest in Australian history. Second, the equity and macroefficiency costs of not doing anything radically different are argued to be very high.

A final part of the analysis considers the fundamental challenge of the Job Compact policy suggestion made in the Government’s Green Paper on unemployment. However, the way in which the policy is to be instituted needs attention. It is likely that the use of the current JOBSTART wage subsidy scheme will not be enough to achieve the desired outcomes.
A Case for Public Sector Job Creation Schemes? Not Really
Authors: Sloan Judith , Wooden Mark
Published: March 2013

In a recent article appearing in this journal, Burgess (1992) argues the case for the immediate introduction of a public sector job creation scheme. He claims that on “both efficiency and equity grounds there is a strong case for public sector job creation schemes (PSJCS)” (p. 116). In this short note, we show that it is extremely unlikely that PSJCS can promote any substantial net job creation which will be sustained beyond the short-term. Moreover, we argue that such schemes typically promote less efficient outcomes. In effect, the case for PSJCS boils down to the equity effects. However, even here the case remains relatively weak given there are considerable doubts whether PSJCS actually impart valuable skills to participants or enhance their employment prospects.