Two factors shaped the character of class struggle in the Fraser years. The first was the economic crisis that destroyed Gough Whitlam and dogged his successor through seven years in office. The rate of profit continued to fall and slow economic growth alongside high inflation and unemployment appeared to have become permanently entrenched (see Table 4.1). The second factor was the continued resistance by workers to the Government and business agenda. The success of the Kerr Coup had radicalised a significant minority of workers who loathed the Fraser Government and who saw every union or working-class victory as one step towards bringing it down.

Faced with these two apparently intractable problems, the Fraser Government's actual achievements fell short of its ambitions. It disappointed employers who had looked to it with such enthusiasm on its taking power in 1975 and who had seen it as a vehicle for achieving substantial advances at the expense of the working class. The working class, although battered by the Kerr Coup, high unemployment and a series of important industrial defeats in 1976–77, managed to regroup by late 1978. Over the course of the following three years the strike rate soared, destroying business hopes that the Fraser Government could rein in the unions. The strike wave was followed shortly afterwards by a serious recession, and the two combined to seal the Government's fate.