While PM John Howard had the opportunity when he gained a Senate majority to update Australia’s outmoded IR system, he completely failed to do so, Freeman said. The outdated aspects of the previous WR Act remain and are made worse, he said. Two massive issues on which Work Choices does absolutely nothing are the globalisation and the feminisation of the labour market, he said. For example, in “every single country” except Japan, women now represent a “significant majority” of university graduates. Given Australia has “all these educated women”, it would be expected the PM might have created a labour market that would accommodate and utilise them, but he didn’t, Freeman said. “I think the govt missed a great opportunity to actually modernise the labour code. They actually blew it. It is a remarkable self-delusion.”

Workchoices fails any test whether it be fairness, equity, a ‘fair go all round’ or economic efficiency.