Although a Labor government fiscal stimulus had helped Australia weather the 2008 global financial crisis, budget deficits increased, and the public service was targeted for economies. The Liberal/National (Coalition) opposition won office in 2013, promising public sector cuts. In this context, the Walton et al. concept of a forcing strategy helps analyse the 2014–2016 bargaining round in the Australian Public Service. A forcing strategy involves three negotiating processes: distributive bargaining to achieve concessions in pay and working conditions, the structuring of attitudes to heighten animosity between the negotiating parties, and the management of internal differences to minimise intragroup conflicts. The Liberal/National (Coalition) government adopted elements of these approaches, requiring Australian Public Service agencies to reduce a range of employment conditions to justify pay increases. Interactions between Australian Public Service management and the principal Australian Public Service trade union, the Community and Public Sector Union became increasingly hostile over the course of the bargaining round. In addition, internal differences emerged between the Australian Public Service Commission, which oversaw the bargaining process, and individual Australian Public Service agencies. We consider the efficacy of this forcing strategy in light of the potential for the Community and Public Sector Union to mobilise its membership to resist such an approach to pay negotiations.

Over several decades Liberal-National Governments have encouraged Australian Public Service (APS) employers to uphold managerial prerogative by offering individual employment arrangements to employees. During the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Morrison Liberal-National Government’s Workplace Bargaining Policy reinforced this agenda. In place of collective bargaining, APS agency heads were encouraged to determine pay rises and new employment conditions for employees using Section 24 of the Public Service Act ( PS Act) 1999. Workplace determinations did not need to be negotiated with public sector unions and some 85,500 employees across 57 APS agencies, or approximately 63% of the APS workforce, had accepted pay increases via workplace determinations by 31 December 2020. The widespread adoption of workplace determinations in the APS poses significant challenges for public sector unions and for the future of APS collective bargaining. JEL Codes J21, J45, J53, K31.

This article critically examines the law concerning dismissal on grounds of redundancy as it applies to the Australian Public Service ('APS'). Such an examination is timely, given the newly elected Coalition government's stated intention to reduce the APS by 12 000 employees through natural attrition. The article argues that a reduction of 12 000 employees through natural attrition alone is unlikely, and that redundancies are almost inevitable. Against this backdrop, the article considers recent legislative developments concerning dismissal on grounds of redundancy. Its focus is the genuine redundancy exclusion contained in s 389 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) ('FW Act') and its application to APS employment. The genuine redundancy exclusion precludes unfair dismissal claims if the redundancy is genuine, the employer complies with any consultation obligations in a modern award or enterprise agreement and it would not have been reasonable in all the circumstances to redeploy the affected employee within the employer's enterprise or that of an associated entity. The article argues that, prior to the FW Act, redundancy obligations were predominantly dealt with in collective agreements, and did not require consultations or redeployment of redundant employees beyond the individual agency. However the FW Act fundamentally changed the law in this area. The article contends that a failure to comply with consultation obligations in an agency enterprise agreement will increase the prospects of a dismissal being found to be unfair. In the APS this is problematic, given the convoluted nature of many consultation clauses in enterprise agreements. The article also argues that the redeployment obligations in s 389(2) are extremely broad and, contrary to past practice under the Public Service Act 1999 (Cth) ('PS Act'), encompass redeployment across the APS. The obligation to redeploy across the APS creates tensions in the law between the provisions of the FW Act and the devolution of managerial powers under the PS Act. Lecturer, ANU College of Law. I wish to thank my colleagues Ms Pauline Thai and Emeritus Professor Dennis Pearce AO for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I also wish to thank and acknowledge the helpful suggestions for improvement made by the anonymous referees. Thanks must also go to Alice Crawford for valuable research assistance in the preparation of this article.

While australia escaped the harshest aspects of the Global Financial crisis (GFc), public services at the federal level have experienced financial stringency in the form of efficiency-related budget cuts from late 2011 as the australian government strived to achieve a budget surplus. this paper explores the ways in which the main australian Public service (aPs) trade union, the community and Public sector union (cPsu), developed innovative strategies in 2011 and 2012 to meet this challenge. the cPsu was able to utilize the capacities and experiences gained from operating under a conservative government to expand its activities and capabilities from 2007 under a more socially aware, though neo-liberal, labor government whose industrial relations legislation and policy agenda were more supportive of collective bargaining. the cPsu developed more targeted campaigns, deployed a broader range of industrial tactics, and mobilized the union's membership in more active and creative ways. the outcome was a renewed form of trade unionism.

At first glance, Part 3-1 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) seems to overlap with long-established anti-discrimination laws, offering protection against adverse, attribute-based conduct in employment. On close analysis, however, it turns out to be a new and quite different regime. Although the Fair Work Act offers a simple alternative to dated and complicated anti-discrimination laws, its provisions are at times overly-simple, raising uncertainty about how they will operate. Our analysis leads us to conclude that the approach to discrimination protection in the Fair Work Act, while an important addition to the remedies available to Australian workers, is compromised by failing to take account of lessons learned in the long history of anti-discrimination law.