The Howard government’s draconian Work Choices laws will soon be history. A change of government at the 2007 federal election means that Australian industrial relations legislation will continue to be a turbulent field, for some time yet. This review provides an account of the last piece of...

In 2009, two major pieces of industrial legislation were enacted to give effect to the Labor Government’s commitment to replace Work Choices with laws for ‘Fair Work’. The Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) promises to bring greater stability and simplicity to Australia’s workplace relations...

In March 2008, the Rudd Government started to dismantle Work Choices. The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Act 2008 (Cth) reintroduced agreement-making safeguards, and removed the option of making Australian Workplace Agreements. The legislation also provided...

This paper examines the impact of English and Australian unfair dismissal legislation on the common law rules which govern the termination of the employment contract. To explore this issue, the paper first outlines some general approaches to the interaction between statute law and the common...