Table of Contents
In Chapter One of this book it was stated that:
The contributions in this book weave together the themes of, and influences on, public sector employment in contemporary Australia, whilst exploring parallels and differences between public sector employment in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, with some discussion of whistleblowers’ legislative protection, including developments in the United States.
These themes embrace developments over time and up to the early part of the twenty-first century. What of the period beyond? What influences are emerging? What is likely to occur in public sector employment? What challenges are ahead?
In these concluding pages, some issues are explored and questions raised. They include the new influence ahead of the regulatory framework for industrial relations and the APS; state responses to the new regulatory framework in relation to state public servants; the challenges of employment diversity in terms of women, Indigenous Australians and people with disability; challenges associated with an ageing workforce; the influence of the private sector; the potential for clashes of market forces and APS codes and values; and the role of policy and guidelines. Finally, the work of Dr Peter Shergold, in forecasting the future in Australia to the year 2035, is examined.
One of the significant changes in recent times has been the enactment of the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act 2005 (Cth) (‘Work Choices’) and the Workplace Relations Amendment (A Stronger Safety Net) Act 2007 (Cth) (‘Stronger Safety Net Act’). These Acts, which amended the Workplace Relations Act 1996 (Cth), have radically changed the regulation of workplace relations in Australia. Utilising mainly the corporations power in the Constitution, section 51(xx), as the legislative authority for enactment, the Work Choices legislation of 2005 and the further legislative amendments in 2007 have overhauled the legal framework for collective and individual workplace relations in Australia, and hence the context in which Australian public sector employment operates. The new framework has:
abolished compulsory arbitration;
reduced the role of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (‘the Commission’) in conciliation;
generally removed that Commission’s award-making role (except in limited circumstances);
abolished the role of awards as a safety net (except as a standard for comparison in a limited way where the new fairness test brought in by the Stronger Safety Net legislation applies to agreements);
generally shifted the role of the safety net in respect of wages to the new minimum rates set by the Australian Fair Pay Commission and the minimum conditions standards in the legislation (known collectively as the Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard);
encouraged individual bargaining and collective bargaining resulting in Australian Workplace Agreements or collective agreements respectively, with the removal of former mechanisms of scrutiny (either the Australian Industrial Relations Commission or the Employment Advocate); rather workplace agreements are now lodged with the Office of the Workplace Authority (formerly the Office of the Employment Advocate) to be operational upon lodgement (it being noted that, in the case of collective agreements and those AWAs which meet specified remuneration levels, to be valid, such agreements must satisfy a ‘fairness test’);
removed the protection from unfair dismissal for employees engaged by employers with staff of 100 or less, and for all employees, regardless of employer size, where there is termination of employment for operational reasons;[1]
The impact of this legislation has been referred to in this book in the context of the framework for public sector employment, the making of collective and individual agreements and the impact of the transmission of business provisions, to name but some of the issues addressed in the chapters of the book. However one of the very significant aspects of the Work Choices legislation is the enactment of a single national system of workplace relations. The new system essentially applies to all corporate employers which are ‘constitutional corporations’ (that is trading, foreign and financial corporations), the Commonwealth and Commonwealth authority employers, and their employees.[2] It no longer rests on the employers and unions initiating an interstate industrial dispute and thereby obtaining award coverage through this mechanism or a collective agreement for settlement of such a dispute.
The implications for the Australian public sector are yet to emerge fully and to be analysed. However, many of the developments occurring in the Australian public sector previously had occurred against the backdrop of the compulsory arbitration system with award safety nets, the possibility of collective bargaining and the then new emphasis on individual agreements (AWAs). The new environment for workplace matters suggests that much of the impact will be felt in wage rates, wages differentials, gender (in)equality and less public disclosure of terms of agreements (particularly given the policy for use of AWAs at Commonwealth level) as well as in the content of agreements. It is far from clear how the changed legal framework, and the consequences for the private sector, will directly and indirectly affect workplace conditions for APS employees.