New Video: The Dignity Of Work

“Bill Shorten’s announcement on penalty rates – that he only accepts the independence of the Fair Work Commission when it suits him – should give the Turnbull Government the courage to scrap the industrial relations laws that are keeping thousands of Australians out of work,” said Gideon Rozner, Research Fellow with the free market think tank the Institute of Public Affairs.

In a new video released by the IPA, Gideon Rozner explains how the Fair Work Act has created unsustainably high increases to pay and conditions.

“While these are great for those who already have jobs, they penalise people who are out of work by driving up the costs for businesses to hire.”

“The regulatory nightmare created by Fair Work has become a straitjacket on Australian businesses, locking thousands of Australians out of the work force.”

“Despite union membership at record lows. Fair Work has reinstated the role of trade unions at the heart of Australia’s industrial relations system. The unions have, in turn, been the juice in the machine that has made Fair Work so insidiously bad for the right to work.”

“Unions are driving pay and conditions of awards up via the modernisation and review process, holding businesses to ransom through enterprise bargaining laws and dragging employers to the Fair Work Commission over frivolous unfair dismissal claims for which the union bares no cost and, therefore, no risk.”

“For the sake of the more than 700,000 Australians currently looking for work, the Australian government must remove the regulatory and economic barriers that stop businesses hiring, and give every Australian the chance to experience the dignity of work,” said Mr Rozner.

Watch the new video here.

Read the new IPA report: Fair Work and The Right to Work here.

For media and comment: Evan Mulholland, Media and Communications Manager, on

0405 140 780, or at [email protected]