The AIRC is an institution which was founded on Marxian notions of class warfare and Henry Bournes Higgins saw himself as capable of adjudicating the rival claims of capital and labour. The Kernot-Reith Act now requires all applications alleging unfair or unlawful termination to begin in the AIRC and the AIRC is obliged to seek reconciliation of the parties. Reinstatement is cited in the Act as the primary goal of the conciliation process. If a claim for unlawful termination is not finalised at conciliation the claim can be pursued in an appropriate court. What small business can possibly contemplate a long drawn out process of conciliation, with the union on one side of the table, the IRC in the chair, and following all of that is the prospect of litigation.
Divorce is much easier.
It would have made it easier for small business to employ new people. But under the Kernot-Reith Act we are certainly no better off than under the Brereton Act, and there is a strong argument that we are actually worse off. This legislation will have to go through the Senate, and the Democrats and the ACTU have announced they will oppose the proposed legislation. Less than six months, then, after the passage of the Kernot-Reith Act, the Government was trying to assuage its critics by fiddling at the margins.