In this 2019 electoral year, a federal Morrison Liberal Government was returned to power with little in the way of an industrial agenda. It failed to implement its key legislation, which mainly included reform to union governance and changes to religious freedom in the workplace. Meanwhile, the state governments, particularly the Victorian Andrews Labor Government, reviewed a swathe of labour law, including wage theft, industrial manslaughter, owner–driver legislation and workers' compensation laws and implemented a host of progressive changes. This year has also seen the continuation of a key policy trend, observable at both state and federal levels of government, towards regulation of aspects of industrial relations by the state that were once exclusively the province of employers and trade unions through a twentieth-century system of conciliation and arbitration.
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