Howard’s Work Choices reforms were seen by many as the enemy of the Aussie ‘fair go.’ Since then, the spectre of Work Choices has loomed large over the debate on labour market reform and created a toxic debate over the benefits and prospects of further reform. But if Australia’s economy is to continue to be...

ACOSS's submission to the Fair Pay Commission calls for a substantial rise in minimum wages to help ease financial pressures on low paid workers from rising rents, food and fuel prices. It argues that the financial security of low paid households rests on three pillars: minimum wages, employment, and income support and that it would...

Analysing the characteristics of low wage workers, Andrew Leigh finds that those who earn near-minimum wages are disproportionately female, unmarried and young, without post-school qualifications and overseas born. About a third of near-minimum wage workers are the sole worker in their household. Using various plausible parameters for the effect of minimum wages on hourly wages...