"We welcome the review into the Federal Government's industrial relations changes and hope it will be a wide-ranging and meaningful dialogue for improvements," Innes Willox, Chief Executive of the national employer association Australian Industry Group, said today.
"This review cannot be just a box-ticking exercise reflecting a set and forget approach. We hope this will be a robust and genuine review, regardless of the short time frame and its overlap with the festive season.
"Many of the changes under examination were radical and implemented in a disgracefully rushed manner with notoriously inadequate consultation with industry. It is crucial that the review genuinely looks at what sensible changes are warranted.
"A key challenge will be that major elements of the new rules are still being tested and in many respects the union movement has only just begun to work out how it will respond to the changes. Another challenge is that employers are still busily grappling with implementing the successive waves of changes that have been imposed on them. Nonetheless, the conduct of this review is still crucial, but it may not be the final word on any consideration of the merit of the changes.
"So, we look forward to making a meaningful contribution to this work in the hope that it will help create jobs, not further complexity," Mr Willox said.
