With the passing of Closing Loopholes 2, it’s official: we’re doomed. Notwithstanding the supposedly small target that Anthony Albanese took to the last election, Labor has managed in the space of a very short time to set Australia back by several decades.

Gone is the emphasis on an open and competitive economy where workers and bosses work out win-win solutions, it’s now open class warfare and wealth redistribution. By rights, Keating should be shouting from the rooftops, opposing Albanese’s policies. But unless it’s about superannuation or China, he tends to keep shtum these days.

Of course, the Labor government was always going to have to pay off its debt to its trade union paymasters. But let’s not forget, multi-employer bargaining had been explicitly ruled out prior to the election only for this to be one of the earliest changes enacted.  The combination of that first piece of legislation and the two parts of Closing Loopholes are the equivalent of massively overindulging a toddler (aka the unions) – akin to a Kardashian birthday party.

Let’s not forget here that, in terms of membership, trade unions are no longer a force. Less than 10 per cent of private sector workers belong to trade unions and even public sector unions have been losing members. Only the teachers, nurses, ambos and police in the public sector remain highly unionised.

But in political terms, that’s not the point. In addition to using their effective control of industry superannuation, trade union officials essentially determine the preselection of parliamentary candidates. When those candidates are elected, they remain beholden to their union masters who ensured their elevation to their cushy positions.

In some cases, the link is direct, with former union officials making the transition to parliamentarian. Think here Tony Sheldon, former TWU head, and now senator. There was Dougie Cameron before him and others.

The Labor politician with the prime responsibility for delivering the trade unions’ wish list is, of course, B2 – Tony Burke, the Employment and Industrial Relations Minister. Once upon a time he was a union organiser for the Shoppies – the right-wing union covering retail workers.

He has very little insight into how the labour market actually works or the importance of light-handed regulation to assist productivity. Growing the economic pie always comes second to handing out more of the pie to his tribe.

But what he lacks in policy expertise he makes up for in terms of brutal and effective political manoeuvring. He played far-left senator, David Pocock, like a fiddle to achieve the passing of Closing Loopholes 2.  He had previously been able to ram the two highly pro-union pieces of legislation through parliament whilst barely raising a sweat.

It’s hard to know where to start in terms of outlining the ruinous changes to industrial relations laws, but two things should be noted initially. By appealing to the vague notion of ‘fairness’, B2 is able to sidestep the costs to employers as well as ignore the crippling effect of the additional red tape.

It’s only fair that workers should be able to disconnect. It’s only fair that workers should never have their conditions diluted. It’s only fair that gig workers should be paid minimum wages and conditions. It’s only fair that casual workers should be able to become permanent workers after six months.

By keeping it simple and implicitly pushing the line that the government is there to protect workers from harsh and rapacious employers, B2 is onto a political winner. It’s the calamitous economic impact that’s the problem, but that will only be felt down the track.

The second point to note is the clever game that the ACTU secretary, Sally McManus, has played over the past year or so. In the past twenty or so years, the ACTU has had a series of complete duds as secretary, with the exception of Greg Combet who led the fight against the Coalition’s WorkChoices.

McManus misstepped initially after taking up her appointment. A great deal of money was wasted on the Change the Rules campaign in the 2019 election campaign – what rules? what changes? She had also publicly declared that bad laws – OK, bad laws in her opinion – deserve to be broken. This was not a position likely to win much support from the law-abiding public.

Come the 2022 election campaign, she had learned to shut up, to stay in the background and to bide her time. In the event of Albo becoming the new PM, she knew that the rewards would be rapid and lavish.

So how to assess the many changes to the industrial relations laws? At their broadest level, they imply higher costs for employers, more expensive and protracted compliance and greater scope for third-party interference, particularly by the Fair Work Commission. The notion that the best way to run workplace relations is for bosses and workers to figure it out is essentially dismissed.

To be sure, it will be picnic time for employment lawyers. Business owners and managers will become wary of changing anything affecting workers without detailed advice. Even something as simple as engaging a new worker on a casual basis may require paid legal assistance lest the technical requirements of the new law are not met.  We should expect very few new casual workers to be given regular and predictable shifts even if this would suit them. The legal dangers are too great.

When it comes to gig workers, it’s not even clear how the new laws will be implemented, particularly as many gig workers are operating on several platforms at the same time. The new category of ‘employee-like’ makes little sense; in all likelihood, the FWC will simply classify gig workers as employees. They may quickly become ex-employees as the platforms are not employers in the traditional sense, but rather providers of the technology connecting buyers and sellers.

One of the most egregious changes is the condition attached to access to arbitration by the FWC in the event of intractable bargaining over at least nine months. In the event of a dispute being referred to the FWC, it will not be possible for any diminution in working conditions to be ordered even if these changes have been conceded as part of bargaining. In other words, it removes the notion of better off overall, replacing it with line-by-line assessment.

What this effectively means is that any business with a current enterprise agreement can never expect to negotiate a win-win deal with the workers even if business or market conditions have changed dramatically. It effectively locks in at least what’s in place.  This is no way to run a flexible industrial relations system.