"The primary objective of this study is to intervene in the debate on methods to measure and compare legally mandated employment conditions by applying a recently devised numerical instrument to Federal labour standards in Australia in two points in time. In order to achieve this aim, non-parametric absolute indexes are generated for 1979 and 2000 to measure the strength of labour standards and associated changes over time. The numerical results suggest that two of the 10 standards measured, workers? compensation and collective bargaining, diminished while the indexes for equal employment opportunity/employment equity, unjust discharge, occupational health and safety and large-scale layoffs increased. The central tenet of the paper is that although the numerical data provide useful information, they should be interpreted in light of broader regulatory and policy developments that substantially reshaped the features of the Australian employment protection regime during the period considered. This is necessary because the method utilised is highly sensitive to the nature of the regulatory sources that are adopted to construct the statistical indexes."

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