The Failure to Establish Codetermination in Australia: A Comparative Political Economic Analysis

Abstract

Codetermination has entered the Australian public conversation in the last 4 years with commentators arguing it could reduce labour market inequality. Yet this is not the first-time it has surfaced in Australian debates – the federal Hawke government committed to introducing codetermination, but to no avail. Australian advocates for codetermination failed to do what European Christian Democrats succeed at; persistently championing codetermination and ensuring both businesses and trade unions supported it in practice. Codetermination first appeared in Germany in the writings of Catholic social thinkers, and through these thinkers and papal encyclicals it gained wider acceptance amongst the catholic community. In both Germany and Belgium, it was catholic actors – Christian trade unions, employers’ organisations and Christian democratic parties – that pushed codetermination. During the interwar period, these catholic actors won socialist trade union support for the idea, but their efforts ultimately failed due to sustained opposition from the business community. In the post-war period, these catholic actors again pushed codetermination whilst rebuilding the economy and garnered the support of the business community, ensuring its survival thereon. Comparatively, there was no substantial catholic political movement in Australia, and subsequently codetermination did not enter public debate until the 1970s & 1980s. Furthermore, businesses were never won over to the idea, and so the matter was solely advocated by the trade unions and the Labor party. Ultimately, both the Labor party and trade unions lacked the resolve to instate codetermination, and ultimately dropped the idea as other economic matters became more pressing.