The purpose of this article is to record and analyse the historical circumstances in which Singapore complemented its legacy of British-type collective bargaining with the compulsory arbitration system long practiced in Australia. It notes the role of Australians (particularly one Australian industrial relations scholar at the University of Malaya) in the inception and adoption of industrial arbitration in Singapore. It seeks to identify, analyse, explain and assess the extent of the subsequent divergence of Singapore’s regulatory industrial relations regime from that of Australia since the 1960s. In doing so, it contributes to Asia-Pacific labour history and adds to the literature on international and comparative labour relations with its focus on cross-national influences on national industrial relations regimes.
