An industrial relations platform has been launched by the Australian Greens that will guide its approach in the next Parliament.

‘Good Work: The Greens’ 10 industrial relations principles for re-writing our labour laws’ largely reflects the areas of focus in the Australian Council of Trade Union’s (ACTU) ‘Change the Rules’ campaign, which has previously been endorsed by the Greens.

These include pushing for a large number of reforms relating to bargaining, including permitting industry-wide bargaining, expanding the matters permitted to be the subject of bargaining to include workers’ ‘social, economic and environmental’ interests, and removing/restricting the right to terminate enterprise agreements, particularly during bargaining.

The Greens also want to see the right to strike expanded, including to repeal legislation banning secondary boycotts and strike action.

The principles also touched on union rights, saying unions should have enforceable rights to enter workplaces for legitimate purposes, to talk to members and potential members.

And, Parliament must abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), Registered Organisations Commission (ROC), the Greens’ document said, echoing another area of the ACTU’s advocacy.

“If we can kick Malcolm Turnbull out, these will be our guiding principles when negotiating and passing Labor’s IR bills through the Senate,” Greens MP Adam Bandt said.

AREEA is already closely monitoring the ACTU’s campaign and, where appropriate, countering its highly emotive arguments with objective counterpoints and facts for each area of relevance to the industry.

Given the Greens’ alignment to, and endorsement of, the ACTU’s Change the Rules campaign, AREEA will continue proactively advocating for workplace relations change that is in the interests of investment and employment in Australia’s resources and energy industry, and thus in the national interest.