You can see the full list here, and it’s pretty good on the whole. Gillard gets IR, but perhaps more interestingly, Craig Emerson has been handed a new IR-related portfolio:

Craig Emerson takes on responsibility for a new economic portfolio encompassing the service economy, small business and independent contractors.

Glenn Milne, until the anti-Labor gene kicks in about halfway through, gives a pretty good assessment of what this new portfolio might mean:

But Rudd’s decision to install one of Labor’s best economic thinkers, Craig Emerson, in the new services, small business and contracting portfolio suggests a lateral change in thinking by the new leader.

Howard has hammered away at Rudd in the short time since his election, using Beazley’s and now Rudd’s stand on industrial relations to suggest that Labor has missed the boat on community attitudes to the economy. Howard’s case is that 13 years of continuous prosperity has changed the Australian economic culture; that whereas a decade ago individuals were cautious in their economic reach and reliant on union protection, they are now much more ambitious and prepared to take economic risks.

Aspirational is the word used to sum up this shift, a movement that has also been detected in detailed qualitative research by the Government’s pollster, Mark Textor, for the Business Council of Australia.

Howard’s initial forays against Rudd indicate that he believes Labor is still stuck in the economic mindset of the past and while ever it is the party remains unelectable, no matter who is leader.

The Emerson appointment sends a completely different signal. It suggests Rudd understands that the sectors covered by the new super ministry have exploded in recent years, and that while they are de-unionised they are there for the political taking, depending on which party serves their interests best.

I think this is right, and basically a good move by Rudd. As I suggest at Blogocracy, the nature of what we even mean by a workplace has changed; or rather, one aspect of what it means to be employed has become more common. John Howard uses this change — more individual contractors — to suggest that Labor’s approach to IR is mired in the past.

What I think Rudd realises by the creation of this new ministry is that, whatever the workplace arrangements, even if it is an individual contract with a single worker, that that shouldn’t somehow exempt people from providing fairness in the relationship. That is to say, ‘flexibility’ is neither open-ended nor should it work entirely in one direction, in favour of the employer.

Unless we really do want a race-to-bottom economy where the good of the abstraction of the ‘economy’ is given priority over the good of individual workers, then the inherent imbalances in Mr Howard’s new laws need to be addressed; some of them need to be thrown out.

So far from being mired in the past, Kruddy is beginning to build an argument that the future of work cannot simply be a deskilled workforce with no bargaining power in the marketplace. Gradually he seems to be bringing together the elements of a program that recognises the need to provide world-class education and training and a fair work environment in which people can operate.

This involves initiatives in training and education as well as, it looks like, an forward-looking approach to IR inherent in his creation of this new portfolio.

If he can pull it off, it is John Howard with his ‘for the good of economy schtick’ — a euphemism for his like-it-or-lump-it approach to IR — who will properly be seen as the person mired in the past: the nineteenth century to be exact.