Good Faith and the Fair Work Act: Its Potential, In Light of the New Zealand Experience (Symposium: Assessing the Fair Work Act) (Report‪)‬

Introduction The Australian Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) reintroduced a statutory requirement of good faith bargaining, after a formal absence of over a decade. In this article, we assess the potential of this provision to expand good faith practices in both collective bargaining and broader employment relationships, drawing on the New Zealand experience of good faith under that country's Employment Relations Act 2000 to inform our discussion. New Zealand not only has close historical and economic ties with Australia; it also possessed until 1990 a very similar industrial relations system, although the two countries subsequently diverged during the 1990s. With the National Party government's Employment Contracts Act 1991, New Zealand's conciliation and arbitration system was rapidly dismantled, whereas Australia followed a more measured path towards decentralisation of its industrial relations.