This article explains that, when the Australian Labour Party became the Federal Government, after winning the 1983 federal election, it implemented an agreement reached with the Australian Council of Trade Unions on the conduct of prices and income policies, as well as related matters in economic and social policy. The author examines the ways in which policies emerged from this agreement, known as the Accord, from the time of its implementation late in 1983 until that Federal Government lost office at the beginning of March 1996. He focuses particularly on the relationships between money wages and employment and the measures influencing the social wage, such as cash and non-cash benefits provided by government as well as indirect tax effects. Finally, he finds no evidence of any substantial impact of the social wage on the real incomes of wage and salary earners.
