Will politics defeat sensible labour policy, just as it has with taxation, our disgraceful duplicative mining approvals procedures, and our endlessly complicated immigration appeals?

Our current labour laws are ‘three bricks’: an impossibly large and complicated Fair Work Act, awards, and agreements. The Fair Work Act is approximately 135,000 words long of hard-to-read law, with endless sub-clauses. It is not a thrilling novel. I suggest people pick up the three-by-six-by-nine-inch copy in a library and try and read the heavy thing.

The Coalition proposal to reduce ‘work from home’ in the public sector, for example, requires navigation of these ‘three bricks’, and navigation is not easy. It is legally complex with much scope for litigation which will be eagerly taken up.

It also requires navigation of employee demands and expectations, and trade union campaigns about ‘working mums’. The Coalition does not want to send threatening signals to working mothers in the private sector.

There are three ways to improve things. The first is to radically simplify the ‘three bricks.’

If awards can be modernised and simplified with cooperation, then the Act can be too without losing much or anything.

We can reintroduce the Conciliation and Arbitration Act as it operated before 1988, which was a roof tile, not a brick. It would need updating.

For example, we would need to replicate the strong policy statement that awards are a ‘safety net’ for enterprise bargaining. Awards are not there to squeeze out market wage setting.

We would need to add new unfair dismissal, bullying, sexual harassment, and agreement procedures. This can be done simply by adding that the Fair Work Commission has the power to make orders about those and other additional matters. Then schedules to the Act would set out in no more than two pages how those powers can be exercised: who can apply, and the limits on the orders.

The large so-called ‘National Employment Standards’ just duplicates awards. They should be removed from the Act and incorporated into each award with a simple one-line statement. Other things could be removed.

The Act would be restored to the ‘roof tile’ it was in 1983. I could find things then.

Change would need to be carefully done using a ‘tripartite’ process of employers, trade unions, and government. Trust but verify, as Ronald Reagan said.

At worst there would be no end of screaming. At worst everyone would carefully scan the thousands of existing sub-clauses to identify potential losses, and then immediately demand an additional 20 pages of law.

This would destroy the simplification attempt.

There should be an increase of matters which may be determined ‘on the papers’ without a hearing to save time and litigation costs. The Commission should be able to more easily terminate applications where there is chaotic or uncooperative conduct by litigants such as those with mental illness.

There should be private conferences before every grievance application in which the Commission rigorously requires the parties to identify the paragraphs of their filed evidence that support their case. They should quickly be aware where the gaping holes in their case are, to enable settlement. I settled most of my cases in this way.

Similar changes could be made throughout the Act.

The other approach is to continue as we do now. That is, patch and patch again the existing ‘three bricks’ so that no one really knows where they stand, given the complexity. The Act could be ‘patched’ by repealing most of the Albanese government legislation, or the limited repealing proposed by the Coalition.

I challenge anyone to pick up the ‘three bricks’ and navigate through them to, for example, work out how ‘work from home’ works, or what the obligations on various types of termination of employment are. Good luck, and set aside a whole week, unless you are legally qualified.

Even then mistakes are often made, or the result depends on some form of Commission opinion.

Has the employer proved sufficient poor performance to justify a sacking? Can the employer prove the employee was late to work? Was the employee late to work on only a few occasions?

Some propose far more radical change. A new collective bargaining system could be introduced, modelled for example on the United Kingdom. That would be a more market-orientated system. The market economy is, after all, the basis of Australian living standards and prosperity.

There is no consensus in favour of such a large change. Australian bargaining can however be made more consensual, with a requirement of conciliation before arbitration, or lessening the arbitration of bargaining matters.

Even simplifying the ‘three bricks’ would be difficult. But a start should be made.

Simplification would ideally be bipartisan.

We are supposed to be discussing new policy directions that help Australia, after all. A national effort is needed!

How about some policy integrity and bravery from all sides?

Elections are about more than a hollow ‘men and women of Australia, this election is the most important since…’

Voters support sensible, evolutionary meat and potato policies. They do not require only ‘blah, blah, blah, spend, spend, spend’ although some wonder given election results.

By Reg Hamilton, Adjunct Professor, School of Business and Law, Central Queensland University