A good recent example is last year's recommendation 189, which provides guidance for Members in the design and implementation of policies on job creation in small and medium-sized enterprises. Appropriate use of recommendations would help ensure Member States can apply new labour standards flexibly in accordance with changing circumstances and their particular national conditions. I also note his comment that the system of supervision as a whole is increasingly bogged down under its own weight. He is right to point out that governments should understand the mechanisms for flexibility built into conventions. Australia believes that more should be done to rationalise existing standards.
Many conventions cover a good deal of common ground.
It is time to consider how such conventions and associated recommendations can be reformulated to produce new instruments that express contemporary labour standards relevant to all countries. It is vital that the ILO approaches reform of standard-setting expeditiously. I note that a number of steps to review conventions and recommendations have been taken in recent years. However, as only limited progress has been made, it is important that standard-setting reform remains firmly on the agenda. My government is seriously considering ratifying the 1997 ILO Constitutional Instrument of Amendment which allows for the abrogation of obsolete international labour standards.