Eleven influential Aussies keeping the IR reform debate alive

Tony Abbott, fearful of another Work Choices-dominated election campaign, would rather workplace relations disappear from the political agenda. Yet IR reform is shaping up as one of this year's biggest issues -- as Julia Gillard's decision to appoint rising star Bill Shorten to the IR portfolio shows.

So, in the Liberals' absence, who has kept the flame of workplace flexibility burning bright?

Michael Stuchbury

Industrial relations reform has always been a big issue for the Australian Financial Review. But since Michael Stuchbury took over as editor-in-chief last October, the "battle for the workplace" has become even more dominant in the paper's front pages and editorials. An article published today, "Fair Work rules 'decimating' tourism" is a typical example – as is the accompanying tub-thumping editorial.

Critics believe the paper, a favourite read among big end of town-ers, has crossed the line from reporting to campaigning. A Labor frontbencher told The Power Index late last year that the paper had gone "feral" on IR since Stuchbury's appointment and slammed its coverage as "ridiculous".

Stuchbury, a former editor and economics editor at The Australian, is a well-known economic rationalist. Former colleague Elisabeth Wynhausen describes him in her book The Short Goodbye as "on the further fringes of free market fundamentalism" and recalled him arguing it was wrong to stop people from working for a few dollars an hour if they felt like it.

George Calombaris

The affable MasterChef judge and restaurant mogul weighed into the IR debate last week, telling The Power Index that penalty rates could force many nosheries to close their doors.

"The problem is that wages on public holidays and weekends greatly exceed the opportunity for profit," The Press Club owner said. "It's just not a good business practice to be paying penalty rates. It's really difficult to stay open and we only do it because of tourism but the reality is it's uneconomical. So our labour laws are something that need to be looked at and we keep talking about it."

Calombaris' comments were a late Christmas present for Labor loyalists, who see an IR stoush as their best bet of winning power again at the next election. Workplace Relations Bill Shorten Paul Howes attacked the chef's stance, as did union boss Paul Howes.

Heather Ridout

The Australian Industry Group boss earned brownie points with Labor in 2007 for refusing to join a business funded pro-Work Choices advertising campaign. In the past year, however, the influential lobbyist and soon-to-be RBA board member has been an outspoken critic of Julia Gillard's Fair Work Act. Ridout has blamed the Act for declining productivity and argued that there needs to be a return to Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs).

"Living, breathing companies are telling us that the Act is making it harder for them," she told The Power Index late last year. "It's a real view and it's an informed view."

Tony Shepherd

With Ridout off to the RBA, and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry widely perceived as a "branch office of the Liberal Party", now's the time for the recently-elected Business Council boss to step up and set the agenda on IR.

The outspoken Gillard government critic last year named IR as "the biggest single economic issue facing Australia" and called for the Fair Work Act's "serious flaws" to be remedied. We expect the former Transfield chairman to be a much more vocal advocate for deregulation than his conciliatory predecessor Graham Bradley.

Peter Reith

Nothing is more dangerous than a deregulationist scorned. Since Tony Abbott backed incumbent Alan Stockdale in the Liberal Party presidency ballot last year, after urging Reith to run, the former IR minister has been given a second lease on life.

Everywhere you look -- The Drum, Q&A, the newspaper opinion pages -- Reith is there preaching the virtues of workplace flexibility. He's lobbying behind the scenes as well, trying to encourage his former colleagues to put policy principals ahead of pragmatism.

Jamie Briggs, Kelly O'Dwyer, Josh Frydenberg

Reith doesn't have to bother lobbying these three rising stars: they're signed up members of the IR flexibility club. O'Dwyer, the member for Peter Costello's old seat of Higgins, told parliament last year: "If we are to secure Australia's productive potential into the future, the regulation of the labour markets cannot remain a no-go area for evidence-based policy."

Even before the last election, Briggs, a former workplace relations adviser to John Howard, was arguing that the Fair Work Act had handed the unions too much power and needed to be re-written.

Barry O'Farrell and Ted Baillieu

The Liberal premiers running the nation's two most populous states have both been pushing for an IR overhaul. Baillieu has described changing the Fair Work Act as "an issue that's just too important to ignore", while O'Farrell has predicted that Tony Abbott will eventually back change.

And they aren't just talking the talk: O'Farrell has stripped the NSW Industrial Relations Commission of its discretionary powers to set wages, while Big Ted has drafted new laws to curb the power of militant unions.

Alan Joyce

Joyce, through his dramatic decision to ground Qantas' fleet last year, did more than any other individual to make IR reform a red-hot issues. Yet he has had little to say about the issue beyond his own company's woes. Joyce, a savvy operator, knows he has little to gain by allowing Labor to paint him as a free market fundamentalist.