Full text of an opinion piece published in The Australian Financial Review on 1 November 2023.

If the federal government’s proposed industrial relations changes are simply “modest”, as claimed by ACTU secretary Sally McManus (AFR 30 October), Australian employers and their workforces would be intrigued to know what unions would see as their real demands.

Rather than being modest, what is being proposed in a radical makeover of the Australian workplace relations system.