Lessons from Ansett

Shand Adam , ‘Creditors Face $1.8 Billion Ansett Black Hole’, Australian Financial Review, 18 January 2002, pp.1, 7.

The Benfield Greig Report commissioned by the NSW Department of Industrial Relations cites ‘a general paucity of data to support any detailed analysis’ of this problem. See National Insurance Scheme to Protect Employee Entitlements, Preliminary Feasibility Study, 29 July 1999.

See Abbott , Media Release dated 20 September 2001, ‘Even Better Arrangements to Protect Employee Entitlements’, <www.dewrsb.gov.au/ministers>, last visited 3 October 2001.

See the Airline Passenger Ticket Levy (Collection) Act 2001 and the Air Passenger Ticket Levy (Imposition) Act 2001, passed on 26 and 27 September 2001.

For examples of this viewpoint, see Hewson John ‘Howard's Ties Lead to Bind’, Australian Financial Review, 11 February 2000, p.15; Kohler Alan ‘Family Ties Undo Fair Policy’, Australian Financial Review, 15 February 2000, p.20; Editorial, ‘Keep Politics out of Pay-Outs’, Australian Financial Review, 9 February 2000, p.16.

For an interesting collection of views on the various causes of the major collapses of recent times, see CCH Australia Ltd, Collapse Incorporated: Tales, Safeguards & Responsibilities of Corporate Australia, 2001, CCH, Sydney.

For an illuminating discussion on the development of the floating charge see Nkala J.C. , ‘Some Aspects of the Jurisprudence of the Floating Charge’, (1993) Companies and Securities Law Journal 301–316.

For a full discussion of the effect of the bargaining system in externalising employee interests see Hill Jennifer , ‘At the Frontiers of Labour Law and Corporate Law: Enterprise Bargaining, Corporation and Employees’, (1995) 23 Federal Law Review 204. It should be acknowledged, however, that Katherine Van Wezel Stone, in her work in this field, contests the assertion that collective bargaining is inherently adversarial. See ‘Labor and the Corporate Structure: Changing Conceptions and Emerging Possibilities’, (1988) 55 University of Chicago Law Review 73.

For a discussion of the distinction between this dominant paradigm, and communitarian theories of corporate governance, see Hill Jennifer , ‘Public Beginnings, Private Ends — Should Corporate Law Privilege the Interests of Shareholders?’, (1998) 9 Australian Journal of Corporate Law 21.

See, for instance, Hutton v West Cork Railway Co (1883) 23 ChD 654, and Parke v Daily News Ltd [1962] Ch 927.

A full account of the details of the National Textiles and Steel Tank & Pipe arrangements is to be published in Riley J. , ‘Bargaining for Security: Lessons for Employees from the World of Corporate Finance’, [2002] Journal of Industrial Relations (forthcoming).

For a discussion of HRM practices and the role of communication and information-sharing, see the article, and the references cited within: Deery Stephen and Walsh Janet , ‘The Character of Individualised Employment Arrangements in Australia: A model of ‘Hard’ HRM’, in Deery S. and Mitchell R. (eds), Employment Relations: Individualisation and Union Exclusion an International Study, Federation Press, 1999.

See for instance, the system long in operation in Germany: Vorbrugg Georg ‘Labor Participation in German Companies and Its European Context’, (1977) 11 International Lawyer 249–59. See also the proposals of McCallum Ron , ‘Crafting a New Collective Labour Law for Australia’, (1997) 39 Journal of Industrial Relations 405–21.

See for instance Bray Mark Le Queux Stephane Peter Waring and McDonald Duncan , The Representation Gap in Australia: A Discussion Paper prepared for the Australian Services Union, Employment Studies Centre, University of Newcastle, March 2001.