Extended editorial and overview of orientations to past, present and future annual reviews

Abstract

In this issue, we introduce a new initiative relating to the journal’s approach to annual reviews. In doing so, we are mindful of the great interest among academics and students in the approach that has been taken in the past. We acknowledge with appreciation the efforts of previous Editors-in-Chief (Marian Baird and Bradon Ellem) and Associate Editors (Stephen Clibborn, Rae Cooper, Alex Veen and Chris G. Wright) to ensure coverage of important subjects pertaining to the industrial relations scene in Australia in annual reviews, notably the labour market; women, work and industrial relations; unions and collective bargaining; employer and employer association matters; industrial legislation; and major court and tribunal decisions with additional practitioner reviews. We particularly acknowledge the scholars who have contributed to annual reviews on a three-yearly appointment basis on these specific topics. However, we are of the view that on the eve of the journal’s 65th year in 2024 and in light of interesting and critical developments in Australian industrial relations since the change of the federal government in 2022, it is time to shift to a broader, thematic approach that can enhance the depth of commentary, while still encompassing the traditional topics and actors that have been the focus of past annual reviews. To illustrate that change is not entirely alien to the Journal of Industrial Relations (JIR) and to provide readers with our rationale for the change of approach, this extended editorial provides an overview of the journal’s history of reviewing past developments, highlighting orientations and notable gaps. In fact, the approach that readers have come to know was formally introduced soon after the journal shifted from the University of New South Wales (NSW) to the University of Sydney in August 1999. The subsequent issue in September of that year, Vol. 41, No. 3, was produced collaboratively by the outgoing and incoming editorial teams and the papers covered topics that the journal had covered in the past and that would continue to be examined in the foreseeable future. As outlined by the incoming editors, Ron Callus and Russell Lansbury in their editorial in 2000 (Vol 42, No. 1), annual reports would be ‘mainly devoted to reviewing events’ of the preceding year, in relation to ‘legislative Editorial