High Court challenge to Howard on IR

Former NSW judge Jeff Shaw is organising a union-led High Court challenge against federal government attempts to replace state workplace laws with a national industrial relations system, amid growing legal doubts about the commonwealth's power to do so.

The Labor-controlled states are also planning a challenge, with NSW Attorney-General Bob Debus seeking advice from senior Sydney silk and former NSW Bar Association president Bret Walker SC.

The challenges will argue that, under the constitution, the commonwealth corporations power extends to the regulation of corporations but cannot be used for the ulterior purpose of extinguishing state industrial relations systems.