The High Court decision yesterday was a 5:2 majority call that the Federal government was well within its Constitutional corporations head of power in instituting its sweeping workplace relations laws.

The States have lost the battle and in doing so, they have lost the war, too. This court decision means that the Commonwealth ministers will be lining up for advice from the Australian Attorney General’s Department and the Australian Government Solicitor as to how far they can push their own portfolios via the corporations power.

When it happened in the Tasmanian Dams case under the Hawke government, I didn’t care - I was on their side. Damn straight the Tasmanian government should not be permitted to dam the Franklin, was my view. But now the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, and I am all for federalism. What else have we got to protect us from the kind of sabotage of workplace relations and now potentially also of the health and education portfolios that this Howard government commits with such gleeful, smug abandon?

Read more about views of the High Court’s conservative ascendancy leading to the judgment here

Read about the case and find links to the judgment here