A second important labour market economic principle is to “let the people who live there make the decisions”, Freeman said. “That means you don’t prescribe or limit the bargaining between local people,” he said. “Work Choices has exactly the opposite orientation … It’s a control and command operation … Control and command from Canberra.” This was important to note because management was also restricted in how they could bargain, he said. Work Choices entails “unbelievable micro-managing restrictions on bargaining”, although “a lot of these ‘cannots’ are against unions”, he said. Work Choices actually tells employers “you cannot agree to not unfairly dismiss workers”, even though promising not to do so might motivate them to work harder for you. Everything that has a “positive bent” for workers is outlawed under the current regime, he said. Work Choices represents high-level officials thinking they know exactly what everyone else should be doing, he said. “You ram the medicine down society’s throat in the belief that it is good.”