The principal objects of this Act are ¾

(a) to promote goodwill in industry and in enterprises within industry;

(aa) to provide for rights and obligations in relation to good faith bargaining;

(ab) to promote the principles of freedom of association and the right to organise;

(ac) to promote equal remuneration for men and women for work of equal value;

(ad) to promote collective bargaining and to establish the primacy of collective agreements over individual agreements;

(ae) to ensure all agreements registered under this Act provide for fair terms and conditions of employment;

(af) to facilitate the efficient organisation and performance of work according to the needs of an industry and enterprises within it, balanced with fairness to the employees in the industry and enterprises;

(ag) to encourage employers, employees and organisations to reach agreements appropriate to the needs of enterprises within industry and the employees in those enterprises;

(b) to encourage, and provide means for, conciliation with a view to amicable agreement, thereby preventing and settling industrial disputes;

(c) to provide means for preventing and settling industrial disputes not resolved by amicable agreement, including threatened, impending and probable industrial disputes, with the maximum of expedition and the minimum of legal form and technicality;

(ca) to provide a system of fair wages and conditions of employment;

(d) to provide for the observance and enforcement of agreements and awards made for the prevention or settlement of industrial disputes;

(e) to encourage the formation of representative organisations of employers and employees and their registration under this Act and to discourage, so far as practicable, overlapping of eligibility for membership of such organisations;

(f) to encourage the democratic control of organisations so registered and the full participation by members of such an organisation in the affairs of the organisation; and

(g) to encourage persons, organisations and authorities involved in, or performing functions with respect to, the conduct of industrial relations under the laws of the State to communicate, consult and co-operate with persons, organisations and authorities involved in, or performing functions with respect to, the conduct or regulation of industrial relations under the laws of the Commonwealth.

[Section 6 inserted by No. 94 of 1984 s. 5; amended by No. 20 of 2002 s. 114 and 127.]