| Established | 1986 |
|---|---|
| Chair | Frank Parry KC |
| Website | www.hrnicholls.com.au/ |
The HR Nicholls Society is an Australianthink tank that focuses onindustrial relations.[1][2] According to its website, the think tank “is a committed advocate for sensible industrial relations reform.”[3]
It was created in March 1986 afterJohn Stone,Peter Costello, Barrie Purvis, andRay Evans organised a seminar aimed at discussing theHancock Report and other industrial matters.[4][5] Regular contributors to the Society's publications have been Ray Evans, Adam Bisits andDes Moore, the Director of theInstitute for Private Enterprise. Adam Bisits was the President of the Society until 2017, replacingEvans,[6] who stepped down in 2010.
The Society is named afterHenry Richard Nicholls,[7] an editor of theHobart newspaperThe Mercury, who in 1911 published an editorial criticisingH. B. Higgins, then a High Court judge and President of theCommonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration, accusing Higgins of behaving in a politically partisan and unjudicial manner after attacking a barrister.[8] This led to Nicholls being prosecuted forcontempt of court by theAttorney-General of the Commonwealth, only to be acquitted by the full bench of the High Court.[9][10]
The Society supports the deregulation of the Australian Industrial Relations System, including the abolition of the award system, the widespread use of individual employment contracts and the lowering of minimum wages. The Society only believes in limited labour market regulation, as it believes that excessiveminimum wages[11] and employment inflexibility lead to higherunemployment and lowerproductivity. Since its inception, the Society has advocated what it views as reform of the labour market in order to ensure what it views as Australia's international competitiveness and prosperity. On its website, the Society lists its aims and objectives:
The Society has strong ties with theLiberal Party of Australia. For example, former Federal TreasurerPeter Costello was one of the society's founding members.
In 1986, then Prime Minister and former president of theAustralian Council of Trade Unions,Bob Hawke, branded the Society as a group of "political troglodytes and economic lunatics".[12]
Former Federal Finance MinisterNick Minchin caused controversy in early 2006 in a speech at a Society function where he told the audience that "The fact is the great majority of the Australian people do not support what we are doing on industrial relations. They violently disagree."[13]
He said that the Coalition government "knew its reform toWorkChoices were not popular but the process of change must continue",[14] and that "there is still a long way to go... awards, the IR commission, all the rest of it..."[15]TheAustralian Labor Party has stated that "We know the HR Nicholls society supports the abolition of awards, supports the abolition of the minimum wage, supports the abolition of the independent umpire, the Industrial Relations Commission".[16]
In 2007, the Society criticised theWorkChoices legislation for creating even more regulation. The Society, which in fact supports deregulation of the labour market to the extent that employers and employees simply form contracts with each other and then deal with any disputes via the courts, admonished the WorkChoices model particularly for its length and the amount of red tape, claiming it was "all about regulation" and comparing it to the "old Soviet system of command and control", as well as on federalist grounds saying "This attempt on his part to diminish the role of the states, to concentrate all power in Canberra, is very much to Australia's detriment".[17] Society President Ray Evans stated that in creating WorkChoices "John Howard has assumed an omnipotence that Labor will inherit and to which no mortal should aspire. It will end in tears."[18] Des Moore stated on behalf of the Society that "The HR Nicholls Society is very disappointed with the work choices changes."[19]
In June 2023,The Australian Financial Review reported that Victorian Liberal MPLouise Staley would seek to lead a revival of the society, which had lost much of its membership and last held a conference in 2017. The revived society would "support growing business opposition to Labor's upcoming laws to regulate gig workers, labour hire and casual employment".[20]
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