A leaky ship of State

In the recent ACTU advertising case, details of the report were given to News Ltd journalists. Within hours of the OWS’s claims appearing in the Murdoch press, the incident had attracted blanket media coverage and the government had seized on the case as an example of union fear mongering.

Similarly, a copy of the OWS’s report into the Cowra abattoir case was leaked to the Fairfax press in May in what some viewed as an attempt to soften the blow for the OWS’s ultimate finding, which was handed down in July, that the dismissals were attributable to the “poor viability of the firm”.

These sorts of incidents create distrust. The OWS can be seen as doing the Government’s dirty work and the public will inevitably question whether the regulator is performing a political rather than a public purpose.

Further suspicions are aroused when one looks at some of the personnel in government agencies that are involved in the industrial relations system. There is no clear evidence of overtly political appointments being made to the OWS, but the same cannot be said of other agencies like the Office of the Employment Advocate and the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

The government’s industrial relations changes were always going to be controversial, but it has done itself no favours in establishing a regime that is overseen by government agencies that are politically compromised.

Until the OWS and other similar agencies are truly independent of government, employees are justified in suspecting that there is no longer an independent umpire overseeing the workplace.