This article explains and examines the content and likely effects of the industrial relations legislative package announced by the Prime Minister in May 2005. After placing the package in historical context, including the low take up of registered individual contracts, it focuses on the abolition of the 'no disadvantage' test, changes to minimum wage fixation arrangements, the removal of unfair dismissal protection for many employees, other amendments to the safety net, changes to freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively, the unilateral move to a national system of industrial relations, the politics of reform, and interpretation of the Prime Minister's closing statement that 'the era of the select few making decisions for the many in Australian industrial relations is over'.