The Australian Accord from an international perspective

Abstract

This article places the Australian 'Accord' incomes and prices policy of the 1980s and 1990s in an international historical perspective. It discusses the policy responses to the inflationary crisis of the 1970s in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom and the lessons that might have been learnt from that experience. The then disorderly and inflationary state of workplace bargaining in Australia is compared with a similar contemporary situation in the United Kingdom. It is argued that the Accord provided the vehicle for a politically skilful and successful transition of Australia's unique wage fixing system to one better adapted for an internationally competitive economy. It concludes by questioning whether Australia has the institutional infrastructure to cope with comparable adjustments in future.

Australian industrial relations in 2016

“…While sharing a common language and similar cultural and economic features, ideas and policy frameworks that in the past have gained popularity in the UK and the US have not always translated directly in Australia (Weller and O'Neill, 2014). For instance, while UK and US governments implemented neoliberal industrial relations policies in the 1980s, the reforms that the Hawke and Keating Labor governments introduced during this period were more equitable by comparison (Brown, 2014). When the Howard government later sought to implement a neoliberal industrial relations policy, it was unseated at the subsequent election (Cooper and Ellem, 2008).…”