This paper examines recent attempts to quantify the effects of some major microeconomic reforms on the Australian economy. These micro reforms improve competitiveness. Such measures, however, would apparently do little to raise the share of the manufacturing sector in national product despite induced improvements in competitiveness. The relationship between micro reform and the balance of payments is explored. Some attempts to measure the impact of specific micro reform on the environment are also analysed.

This paper examines the evolution of monetary policy in Australia since the mid 1980s when financial markets were rapidly deregulated. The paper discusses the conduct of monetary policy within the framework of monetary targeting and how deregulation affected this framework. Alternative strategies for conducting monetary policy are discussed. However, it is argued that since 1985, monetary authorities have often changed the focus of monetary policy with no specific framework within which the policy is implemented.

Deregulation has forced interest rates to become the main focus of monetary policy. But, since the deregulation of financial markets, the transmission mechanism by which interest rates affect the economy, has changed significantly.

The central objective of the Opposition’s industrial relations policy is to provide an enterprise focus to the current industrial relations system. Deregulation will be achieved by introducing voluntary unionism and creating an alternative industrial relations stream of enterprise-based voluntary agreements alongside the existing system. The new agreements will have the status of awards but will not be within the purview of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC). Over time, the alternative, deregulated system would become the predominant one as employers recognised its benefits and opted out of the centralised system. Greater flexibility would lead to greater productivity without the problem of wage break-outs.

In recent years National Wage guide-lines have attempted to facilitate the implementation of a system of “administered flexibility”. The Efficiency and Restructuring Principle adopted in March 1987, and the Structural Efficiency Principle adopted in August 1988, have been the major instruments of this attempt. In different industries and enterprises these principles have resulted in differing outcomes and approaches. In some industries, such as the chemical, steel and aluminium industries, restructuring has taken place at a company and/or enterprise level. In other industries such as metal fabrication, road transport, building and construction, a “blue-print” industry approach has been adopted. This paper examines award restructuring in such a “blue-print” industry.

Economists tend to have a bias towards faith in market forces. For many economists this is re-enforced by a libertarian social philosophy. Professional judgements made by such economists often reflect their social philosophy as much as the conclusions of purely economic analysis.

While the 1980s saw major changes to the Australian tax system which sought both to reduce avoidance and evasion and to reform the base structure of income tax, there are design deficiencies in some of these changes which must be attended to. Also a much closer approach to comprehensive and consistent taxation of investment income should be attempted. On the side of indirect tax the replacement of the wholesale sales tax by a broadly based value added tax is highly desirable, but is unlikely to be achievable politically unless lpart of a strategy which combines sales tax reform, tax mix change and income tax reform. In any case, meaningful and durable reform of the tax system requires a basic community consensus which cuts across sectional interest groups and political parties.

The 1980s was a decade in which federal governments tackled the problem of massive tax avoidance by corporations. Taxation Reforms have reduced tax avoidance but have not been totally successful. This paper develops five propositions designed to bring about a tight and economically efficient system.

This paper summarises the conclusion of an OECD-based study on the nature and dynamics of change in industrial relations. A number of industrialised market countries are examined, six of which — Australia, Japan, Britain, the United States of America, West Germany and Sweden — are the focus of a detailed study. Successive parts of the paper examine the experience of change, the agents of change, factors facilitating change, and barriers to change. The paper concludes with several generalised propositions about the macro change process drawn from the experience of the countries reviewed, and a review of policy options.