Work Choices in overview: big bang or slow burn?

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.Andrew Stewar

Neoliberalism, gender inequality and the Australian labour market

Over the past 25 years neoliberal philosophies have increasingly informed labour market policies in Australia that have led to increasing levels of wage decentralization. The most recent industrial relations changes aim to decentralize wage setting significantly further than has previously been the case. We argue that this is problematic for gender equity as wage decentralization will entrench rather than challenge the undervaluation of feminized work. In this article we provide an overview of key neoliberal industrial relations policy changes pertinent to gender equity and examine the current state of gender equity in the labour market. Results show that women's labour force participation has steadily increased over time but that a number of negative trends exclude women with substantial caring responsibilities from pursuing a career track. The implications of increasing levels of wage deregulation are that gender wage inequality and the potential for discrimination will grow

Reducing the compliance burden of nonprofit organisations: cutting red tape

Australian governments now rely on the non-profit sector to provide essential services. Yet, anecdotally, the compliance burden imposed by governments consumes scarce service delivery resources. This study quantifies the cost of government generated paperwork for Queensland non-profit organisations. Fourteen non-profits kept logs to record government paperwork over 12 months. The non-profits also provided their experiences of government paperwork and in particular grant submission and reporting processes. The study finds that government grant paperwork forms the bulk of a non-profits total paperwork burden with grant submissions being the most costly to complete. Costs are clearly regressive with small non-profits bearing a significantly higher burden. Governments need to lead the way and empower the non-profit sector by reducing this administrative burden and releasing the funds for direct service provision