IR fight looks for flag bearer

Has Myer chief Bernie Brookes become some sort of quasi Opposition business spokesperson? You could certainly be forgiven for thinking so.

This year has seen Brookes take on the Government over its taxation of the retail sector (or more specifically, the fact that imported goods worth under $1000 aren’t hit with GST), its flood levy and now its industrial relations regime.

Clearly, Brookes is speaking through his pocket. Like most stores, Myer is battling a crisis of confidence amongst consumers and at times it must seem like the world is conspiring against retailers.

The rise of the dollar has sparked a flurry of overseas sales, the flood levy (and coming carbon price) is taking money out of consumers’ pockets and, according to Brookes and fellow retail heavyweights Westfield and Woolworths, the IR environment in retail is forcing up costs.

What the retailers specifically don’t like is the Government’s award modernisation process, which has seen a single national award replace state-based retail awards.

The National Retailers Association says the transition to the new awards systems has seen retailers forced to pay annual wage increases of 6% above inflation.

And in an environment where sales are under severe pressure, those sort of cost increases are difficult to absorb.

Brookes and his colleagues have been using the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into the state of the retail market as a platform to air their long list of grievances.

But it’s hard to see whether this is anything more than an opportunity for everyone to get things off their chest.

 It seems highly unlikely that anything will change as a result of this inquiry.

Industrial relations seems particularly unlikely to change. Tony Abbott and the Coalition – who famously declared WorkChoices dead, buried and cremated before the last election – seem to have no appetite for driving any change to IR rules, a fact Brookes decried in The Australian today when he said the “leading party at the moment are pushing for labour market restrictions and you’ve got the Opposition noticeable by their absence from the argument”.

The Opposition’s unwillingness to even push for tweaks to the Fair Work system is mystifying. Their “killing” of WorkChoices has left them with very little appetite for change in this area.

So it will be interesting to see if business continues to stick its neck out and push for change in the knowledge they are going to get no support from the Coalition.

But it does seem very strange that the Opposition is prepared to throw all its energy into running campaigns against migration and carbon pricing – two things that many business leaders actually support – and won’t even consider shifting its position on IR.