John Denton delivers prestigious Foenander Lecture at University of Melbourne
22 August 2008
Corrs CEO John Denton delivered the prestigious 2008 Foenander Lecture at the University of Melbourne this week. His speech, entitled 'A Business Perspective on Labor's Reform Agenda' discussed the Rudd Government's program of reform and its historical and global context.
John highlighted the challenge for the Government in developing a workplace relations system that balances the need for:
- national competitiveness
- fairness for employees, and
- the flexibility and productivity needs of business
He also said that the recent experience of a number of other countries shows that the competing goals of national competitiveness, fairness for employees, and flexibility for businesses,
can be reconciled. And while this has involved a degree of re-regulation of the labour market, this has only occurred to the extent necessary to maintain public support for and the amelioration of the harsher impacts of globalisation – but without abandoning the overall project of internationalist economic policy.
Australia must "stay the course in the global economic order", through a continued commitment to open trade and investment policies.
The Foenander Lecture was established in memory of Orwell D. Foenander, a former academic at the University, who was one of the leading figures in industrial relations scholarship in the early 20th century. Each year a distinguished figure from government, business, the union movement or academia presents the lecture on contemporary issues in industrial relations and human resource management.
Previous presenters of the Foenander lecture include Professor Joe Isaac, Bill Kelty and former Corrs partner Ian MacPhee.
Click here to view the speech (pdf)
