IR warrior John Lloyd takes up cudgels at IPA

Former public service commissioner John Lloyd, who quit over his dealings with the IPA, has joined the think tank.

Former public service commissioner John Lloyd has joined the IPA. Picture: Gary Ramage

Former public service commissioner John Lloyd, who quit following scrutiny of his dealings with the Institute of Public Affairs, has taken a new job with the conservative think tank as its director of workplace relations.

Mr Lloyd, who was found by a government inquiry to have breached the public service code of conduct by providing material to the IPA, insisted yesterday there was “nothing untoward” about him returning to work for his former employer.

“Critics from the ALP and ­unions are always going to criticise me, no matter what I do,’’ Mr Lloyd, a former commissioner with the Australian Building and Construction Commission, told The Weekend Australian.

“If they don’t like what you’re saying or your position, they move on to personal criticism.”

Between previous Coalition appointments, Mr Lloyd worked for the IPA as director of its work reform and productivity unit, and as public service commissioner maintained contact with the IPA leadership, using his work email to engage with its staff, including executive director John Roskam.

Merit Protection Commissioner Linda Waugh found in ­August that Mr Lloyd failed to uphold public service values and the good reputation of his agency.

She found Mr Lloyd’s decision to provide a document to the IPA about “generous” public sector workplace deals failed to consider the clear risk of potential consequences for his position upholding Australian public service values.

“It was clear that such action would likely be viewed by critics as a strategic and controversial initiative by Mr Lloyd to build a ­coalition of support for his views, and as a political action, if it were to become publicly known as it subsequently did,’’ she found.

Her findings were sent to Mr Lloyd, who denied any wrongdoing, just hours before he ended his controversial tenure as public service commissioner.

In his new position, Mr Lloyd will provide commentary on behalf of the IPA about workplace relations policy in the lead-up to next year’s election, and will be a vocal critic of Bill Shorten’s industrial relations proposals.

Mr Roskam said yesterday: “There is no one better qualified in Australia to lead the debate on why we must embrace industrial relations reform.”

Mr Lloyd’s latest appointment is likely to be attacked by unions and Labor MPs, who have criticised him for years for lacking independence and advocating a hardline right-wing position on industrial relations.

Mr Lloyd said yesterday he was concerned about a number of the Labor Party’s industrial relations policy proposals, claiming: “I am not too sure they are suited to a workplace in 2018.”

He said the ALP’s proposals for multi-employer bargaining represented a “U-turn back to the 1980s”.

He also said giving unions the ­capacity to take strike action in support of sector-wide claims would be a “backwards step”.

Mr Lloyd said many employer groups were reluctant to enter into the public debate over industrial relations policy.

He has previously criticised the ACTU’s bid to rewrite federal workplace laws and Labor’s promise to scrap the ABCC, while warning good policy advice was being stifled by “pervasive group-think” dictated by political ­correctness.

Mr Shorten has promised to scrap the ABCC if Labor wins the election but Mr Lloyd has said it “would be a seriously retrograde step to abolish the ABCC”.