WorkChoices helped end John Howard’s leadership. The policy’s ghost still haunts the Liberals
- Written by Emily Foley, Postdoctoral research fellow, Flinders University; University of Canberra
WorkChoices marked one of the great turning points of the Howard era. It accelerated the unravelling of a decade-long Coalition government, handed Labor a potent election weapon, and led the most successful union campaigns in modern Australian political history.
Over the years, WorkChoices has become shorthand for policy disaster. While it wasn’t the only factor to bring the prime minister undone, it forever changed the political landscape on industrial relations reform.
Previous Senate compositions had frustrated these ambitions, forcing repeated concessions on reform. Howard’s 2004 election win and an unexpected majority in both houses changed that. It gave the government the confidence to pursue a far-reaching industrial relations agenda.
Cabinet papers released this year reveal that in March 2005, Howard’s cabinet agreed to introduce a suite of reforms to be known as WorkChoices.
What was WorkChoices?
On May 26 2005, Howard introduced the workplace relations package known as WorkChoices, describing it as “the most fundamental modernisation of our system yet seen”.
The changes cemented neoliberalism’s role in Australia’s industrial relations framework by allowing market forces to set the parameters for wages and conditions.
Despite not being flagged in the 2004 election campaign, the Workplace Relations Amendment (Work Choices) Act was introduced to parliament in 2005 and came into effect in 2006.
Key reforms included abolishing the Australian Industrial Relations Commission and replacing it with the Fair Pay Commission to set minimum wages. The bill also cracked down on union rights and protections, and dramatically reduced unfair dismissal laws.
Finally, WorkChoices expanded employer powers to impose individual contracts, known as Australian Workplace Agreements, that could circumvent award provisions and collective agreements.
On the chopping block
When WorkChoices passed, Labor and the trade union movement moved quickly to mount a coordinated opposition. But it was the unions that had begun to set the terms of the public debate, with the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) launching its campaign in June 2006.
Labor’s opposition took fuller shape with the election of Kevin Rudd as opposition leader in December 2006.
Rudd’s broader economic pitch was notably cautious, careful not to appear antagonistic toward business and equally careful not to look too beholden to unions. Some dubbed this “me-tooism”.
But on WorkChoices, there was no ambiguity: it would be repealed.
Julia Gillard, as shadow employment and industrial relations minister, produced Labor’s Forward With Fairness alternative.
Central to this was collective bargaining, opposing Australian Workplace Agreements and expanding minimum employment standards. Fair Work Australia would amalgamate existing statutory bodies and unfair dismissal laws would be reinstated.
Some union officials nonetheless criticised Labor’s response as not going far enough, with restrictions on pattern bargaining and constraints on union power still in place.
The beginning of the end
In the years since, WorkChoices has been widely considered a significant factor in the Howard government’s electoral defeat in November 2007.
Following the legislation’s introduction, growing media attention and emerging research documented the negative impact on vulnerable and precariously employed workers.
In May 2007, Howard and Industrial Relations Minister Joe Hockey announced a new set of worker protections to address the unintended consequences of WorkChoices, alongside a fresh advertising campaign to reassure voters.
But momentum had already shifted. From the moment Rudd took the Labor leadership, Howard looked increasingly vulnerable, and Labor carried that advantage into the November 2007 election.
Set against Howard’s already declining popularity was a public campaign against WorkChoices. The “Your Rights At Work” campaign has been described by academics as the “most significant political campaign” by a non-party political group in Australia’s history.
Not only was the Your Rights At Work campaign successful in mobilising a wide cross-section of civil society groups but, come election time, the millions spent by the ACTU targeting marginal Coalition seats led to the eventual winning of 21 of the 25 it targeted.
Ultimately, after winning government in the November election, the Rudd government repealed WorkChoices in 2009, and replaced it with the Fair Work Act.
Shaping Liberal party memory
The lesson of 2007 was that not only was WorkChoices deeply unpopular, but when industrial relations became a defining election issue, voters were more likely to trust Labor to handle it better.
The political memory of WorkChoices within the Liberal Party is therefore complicated. Its lingering impact is arguably why, even as the Liberals frequently bemoan Australia’s industrial relations framework, they rarely campaign on it.
Notwithstanding a weaker union movement today, a deep trepidation about major industrial relations reform persists within the Liberal Party. The fear of repeating 2007 has not gone away.
At its heart, WorkChoices highlights a perennial tension in Australian politics: the balance between employer power and worker power, and the role of unions in mediating that relationship.
The significance of WorkChoices is profound, not only for understanding the decline of Howard and a decade-long Coalition government, but for understanding the mobilising power of the labour movement.
Industrial relations have long been Labor’s terrain. WorkChoices handed Labor a defining wedge issue at precisely the moment it needed one, cementing the Coalition’s fate at the 2007 election.
More broadly, WorkChoices is a reminder that a major reform that fails to bring the public along rarely succeeds electorally.
Authors: Emily Foley, Postdoctoral research fellow, Flinders University; University of Canberra
