The Wire

This week, the Labor state governments signalled that they intend to mount a High Court challenge to the constitutionality of the Howard government’s proposed industrial relations changes. At the Council of Australian Governments meeting in June this year the state govenments refused to grant their power to make laws with respect to industrial relations to the Federal Government. The Howard government responded by saying that it would go ahead and pass the new industrial relations legislation anyway, relying on the corporation’s power contained in s51(xx) of the Constitution. The state governments hope to prove that this use of the corporation’s power is unconstitutional and that the federal government does not have the power to enact its proposed industrial relations changes. However, some legal commentators have suggested that such a challenge does little more than provide false hope to opponents of the Howard governments proposed changes to industrial relations. The suggestion has been raised that the states are mounting the High Court challenge more to draw draw attention to the usurpation of their power by the federal government than because they believe they will be successful in preventing the proposed industrial relations reforms. George Winterton, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Sydney spoke to Tristan Burt about the proposed industrial relations reforms and the likelihood of the states mounting a successful challenge to their constitutional validity.