The NSW Green Paper Twenty Years on: A Reflection on the Future‪.‬

The 1989 Green Paper Transforming Industrial Relations in New South Wales, advanced 99 recommendations across a range of concerns. Some were quite prosaic, such as the scope for legal representation in tribunal proceedings and redrafting the regulations to the enabling legislation. Other measures, such as those to do with union amalgamations, OH&S in small business, and pay equity addressed problems specific to a system that was, at that time, the least reviewed in Australia. A third group of recommendations, which are more interesting in the current Australian policy climate, addressed the key design features of how an industrial relations system could be best made fit for purpose in a competitive world. Most of the proposed changes were implemented, either through ministerial actions or through two pieces of legislation: the Industrial Arbitration (Enterprise Agreements) Act 1990 and the Industrial Relations Act 1991. By applying a green paper process, these changes followed periods of submission-taking and considerable consultation, with extensive debate.