This is a story about major reforms in industrial relations. The subtitle (if enterprise bargaining is the answer what was the question) is a whimsical way of asking why did Australia engage in radical institutional reform of industrial relations, and what difference will such a reform make? The paper argues that the nature of the recent industrial relations reform was to change fundamentally the principles of the institutions of industrial relations regulation. This occurred as a result of the particular institutional strengths of the previous industrial relations system, combined with a set of political circumstances. The implications of the reform are not to change all industrial relations outcomes, nor to deliver necessarily the changes in outcomes promised. Instead they affect key aspects of the collectivism and equity encouraged by the previous system. In sum they destabilise the industrial resources of the union movement and workers.