Today I have been reflecting on minimum wages and employment. As the Australian economy slides slowly along the bottom (close to zero growth), the conservative forces are mobilising to attack the changes that the current federal government made to the industrial relations laws when they won the last election. Ex-liberal party hack (advisor) and now Director of the conservative Sydney Institute and regular Sydney Morning Herald columnist Gerard Henderson is one person who is leading the charge. While the first of the changes will not come into effect until next month, employers who have revelled in the massive redistribution of national income that the deregulation the labour market delivered to them are already enraged and looking to commentators such as Henderson for succour. The problem is that there is no argument they can make that is defensible. This will become a new battlefront for unions who seek to defend the interests of the most disadvantaged workers in the land.