The Australian Fair Pay Commission: a new actor performing an old function

Under the Work Choices legislation (Workplace Relations Amendment [WorkChoices] Act 2005), a new body, the Australian Fair Pay Commission (AFPC), was established to deliberate over national minimum wage determination. It was surprising that within the neoliberal context of the legislation that minimum wages were retained and that a new authority was established in the Australian industrial or employment relations system. In this chapter we briefly review the rationale for the AFPC, outline its structure and operations and ask what type of 'new actor' ihe AFPC will be in the post-2006 employment relations system and how it differs in its role from its predecessor, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC). We will discuss how the wage determination processes of the AFPC differ from those of the AIRC in minimum wage cases and what is genuinely 'new' about the AFPC. The chapter also briefly examines the decisions handed down by the AFPC in October 2006 and July 2007 and examines what this decision may say about the future behaviour of this new actor. We contend that the AFPC is indeed a new actor. It is located within the state domain of the employment relations system and it is surrounded by rules and procedures like other actors in the Dunlopian framework. It was legally constituted through the 2005 amendments and it has its own commissioners, secretariat and governing regulations. In terms of the 'employment actor' conditions laid down by Bellemare, it operates at the national level but its decisions have an impact on the workplace and industry levels. Moreover, its decisions have an impact on the Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard and also flow on to federal awards. In this way the reach and influence of the AFPC is extensive. To date it has only made two decisions so it can be regarded as a genuinely new actor