The current Australian industrial relations framework is becoming increasingly unpopular. Free market advocates are concerned that the enterprise bargaining system is subject to too many inflexibilities while the Unions blame the sustained weak growth in household incomes on a workplace system that does not give enough bargaining power to workers.

Malcom Turnbull has declared his intention to move Australian industrial relations back to the ‘sensible centre’ and Bill Shorten has already said that if he forms government he will work to reregulate the system. But what should the new system look like? Perhaps the answer lies in the past.