Since the beginning of the 1990s Australia has experienced a gradual but far-reaching process of labour market deregulation. Labour market deregulation has proceeded primarily through the dismantling of the distinctive system of awards-the main avenue of external, protective regulation in Australia for much of the 20th century. This paper examines labour market deregulation and its implications for the Australian workforce. It situates the changes in terms of their institutional starting point in the award system and the growing pressures in the 1980s for increased labour market flexibility. It argues that labour market deregulation is amplifying existing trends to growth in precarious employment, wage dispersion and the development of a low-pay sector amongst full-time employees. In addition, it is sponsoring a significant fragmentation of working-time arrangements.

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This paper identifies the economic and demographic factors responsible for migration flows between Australia and New Zealand by means of a probabilistic model of emigration in both directions. The largely uncontrolled flows between the two countries have the same determinants as those commonly found in studies of internal migration. The cost of migration (proxied by the real cost of air travel), labour market conditions and the potential earnings differential play a role, although the results are modified by the incidence of return migration and age composition.

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In the post-World War II period, working and social life has been organised around the concept of a standard day and week with premium payments for work undertaken during unsocial hours. In recent years, this standard model for organising working-time has been placed under pressure from a range of supplyand demand-side factors. This paper reports on the findings of 1995 survey into the extent and nature of non-standard working-time arrangements in Australia and New Zealand. This paper seeks to assess whether employers in the more deregulated New Zealand system have instigated a vastly different non-standard working-time regime from their Australian counterparts. The article concludes that there are only minor differences in the distribution of non-standard working hours in Australia and New Zealand. It appears that production and operational demands are the central imperative in the structuring of working-time within firms, not the system of labour regulation.