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The article reports on politics and wage reform in Australia. On June 7th, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) delivered what is likely to be its last ruling on the country's minimum wage. Under reforms planned by the conservative coalition government, led by John Howard, the commission's regulatory role is about to give way to a more market-driven system, which will also allow workers more power to negotiate their own wages with employers. The government's chief targets were a centrally determined method of fixing wages under the AIRC, and myriad federal and state "awards" for separate industries--everything from clerical workers to hairdressers--each containing a multitude of stipulations over working conditions. The Howard government went further by allowing individual employees to strike their own deals with bosses through Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA), before the Senate blocked more changes. The planned changes Mr Howard announced last month should go to parliament in August. They contain four key features designed to strengthen the power of employers to do their own pay deals, unburdened by regulation. The AIRC will lose its wage-fixing role to a new body called the Fair Pay Commission, which will be expected to base its decisions mainly on their overall economic impact.

This article considers a political blunder concerning Australia's Iraq policy on the part of opposition leader Mark Latham. With an election expected later this year, and the opposition Labor Party powerfully invigorated under Mark Latham, its latest leader, the prospects for John Howard winning a fourth term as prime minister have been looking a bit dim of late. Youthful and dynamic, and deftly able to steer the political agenda towards issues such as health and education, where Labor resonates strongly with voters, Mr Latham has opened up a commanding lead for the party over Mr Howard's conservative coalition since he took over the leadership just four months ago. Apparently emboldened by a sense that Australians wanted to put their military contribution to the war in Iraq behind them, Mr Latham said on March 23rd that, if Labor wins the election, he will bring the troops home by Christmas. There were echoes of the Spanish election on March 14th, soon after terrorist bombings in Madrid, and the pledge by Jos& eacute; Luis Rodr& iacute; guez Zapatero, the Spanish leader-elect, to withdraw Spain's troops from Iraq. Once Australia's responsibility was discharged after the handover to a sovereign authority in Iraq in July, he said, a Latham government would be hoping to have the troops back by Christmas: hardly revolutionary, given that Labor originally opposed the Howard government's despatch of troops to take part in the American-led invasion.

The article examines Australia's immigration policies relating to refugees seeking political asylum. A disaster involving a boat used by refugees from Afghanistan has revived attention to this issue. The government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has ended some of the restrictive policies of his predecessor Kevin Howard. It is unclear if this change has increased or decreased the number of asylum-seekers.

Three years ago, Prime Minister John Howard ordered armed troops to ward off the Tampa, a Norwegian cargo vessel that had rescued Afghan asylum-seekers from the sea off western Australia. He declared that none would set foot in Australia and consigned them to high-security camps on the islands of Nauru and Papua New Guinea. The Tampa affair, followed by the terrorist attacks on America in September 2001, helped Howard win his third election a few months later. A report in May by Australia's human-rights and equal-opportunities commission concluded that Australia's treatment of child detainees had breached its obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The government recently released all bar one boat child from mainland detention camps, though 19 remain on Nauru. The strongest reason for the policy change has probably been the discovery that asylum-seekers can be good for the economy. Many of those with temporary visas have found jobs as fruit pickers and slaughterhouse workers, helping to keep several towns alive.