Peetz's findings, released this week, show worrying early signs that women's pay in particular has dropped significantly under the new industrial relations laws; that the gap between men and women's pay has widened; and that the earnings growth of vulnerable workers in the hospitality and retail sectors has fallen further behind other workers, possibly because of a loss of penalty rates. Most astoundingly, given the tightness of the labour market, he highlighted Australian Bureau of Statistics data showing that real average wages fell in the first six months after the new industrial relations regime began. There had not been a comparable fall since 2000, when the GST was introduced, and before that the 1980s, when the Accord was in place.

Peetz's message undercut the Government's rosy account of life for ordinary workers under Work Choices. Even the jobs growth, Peetz shows, was higher in the eight months after the pilloried unfair dismissal laws were introduced in 1994 than in the eight months after Work Choices began (3.25 per cent compared with 2.38 per cent). This doesn't mean the unfair dismissal laws were better for jobs growth; just that strong employment growth is probably unrelated to the industrial relations laws, and more likely a response to underlying demand. Peetz, known for his precise approach to statistics, is careful not to exaggerate. He does not believe the wages fall can be sustained in such a tight market; the problems will be acute when the next recession inevitably hits. He says a minority of the workforce has borne the adverse effects. Although a sizeable group each month is losing conditions such as penalty rates and overtime, there is no determined rush to shift workers onto individual contracts. Most employers are being sensible. If nothing else, labour shortages in some parts of the economy are acting as a constraint on the harsh behaviour now permitted. Rather than focus on Peetz's evidence, Hockey launched a vicious attack on his reputation. Hockey put about that Peetz had been called as a witness for the ACTU in an industrial test case, and was therefore "not credible". He had worked for Whitlam when he was prime minister. He told the ABC's PM program Peetz was a "paid-up member of the trade union club". He told The Australian Financial Review that Peetz had once called the US President the "force of Satan". He told radio 4BC Brisbane that Peetz's research had been commissioned by the ACTU.

To set the record straight, the research was not commissioned by the ACTU, and Peetz was in high school when Whitlam was prime minister. Many years ago, he was an expert witness for the ACTU in a test case on redundancy pay. He was asked to present his research on the experience of retrenched people and it stood up to detailed cross-examination. "How would it be if academics felt they could not give expert evidence in courts or tribunals because years later some politician may use the fact your evidence was used by one of the parties to say you have no credibility?" Peetz said when I contacted him.

As for the alleged "force of Satan" remark, that was a slur originally used against Peetz by the Government's head-kicker in the Senate, Eric Abetz, in November 2005, since corrected in Hansard. Abetz had taken four lines from a poem Peetz had written in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, about the futility of responding to terrorists with attacks on civilians to accuse Peetz of "moral equivocation about terrorism". He called him one "of the extreme people", after Peetz had highlighted a particular deficiency in Work Choices (which the Government later modified). Hockey lost his Mr Nice Guy tag when he started calling unemployed people "job snobs" and "job avoiders" last year. Besmirching Peetz's credibility is a form of ideological terrorism. According to another academic in the same field, the attack has frightened colleagues. But he adds the Government saves its most venomous attacks for employers who dare to utter the most muted criticism. If Hockey has a good story to tell, he should not have to stoop to playing the man.