The 1983-96 Accord between the Labor government and unions played a key role in economic reform but was not without its critics.

“It was very much a product of the time, very much a product of the Hawke sell which was around consensus politics,” RMIT University Professor of Workplace Law Anthony Forsyth said.
Over time, the accord made it easier for the Hawke and Keating governments to pursue harder economic reforms such as privatisation, deregulation, breaking down tariff walls, even when they cut across unions’ and their members’ interests.
“We were a pretty insular looking economy prior to that period and having the unions onboard was an important element of the economic program,” Professor Forsyth said.
“It pinned unions to participation in the process and the degree of acceptance among union leadership was helpful to the Hawke government being able to overcome opposition from pockets of the union movement.”
Under the accord, figures such as ACTU secretary Bill Kelty were given a seat at the policymaking table and became household names.
“Inflation was no good for those workers. It was no good for a productive relationship. You can’t bargain about productive things when what you have got hanging over your head is 10 per cent inflation because your starting point is 10 per cent,” Mr Kelty said in 1994 of the accord’s virtues.
However, the accord found its critics from both the right and left of politics.
Free marketeers believed it was a continuation of the “industrial relations club”, the cosy relationship between unions, employers and IR commissioners which acted as a handbrake on labour market reform.
The more militant unions were also disillusioned by the accord towards the end of its life.
“I think as it went on the unions felt they had given up too much on wage restraint,” Professor Forsyth said.
Eight versions of the accord were negotiated but only seven enacted. The election of John Howard in 1996 put an end to the accord process as he pursued industrial relations deregulation, culminating in WorkChoices.
But Mr Morrison distanced himself from Labor’s accord. Rather than promising a suite of new benefits as the trade-off, he warned that without reform those services taken for granted were in peril.
“We do have a social security system which is the envy of the world. That is the product of the last 20 or 30 years and it’s something, I think, we will have an absolute commitment to maintaining,” the Prime Minister said.