Archive for October, 2009
Fair Work Australia – serious questions asked about viability
“To have a genuinely national system there will at some point need to be a rationalisation of the ten-plus State and Federal agencies and tribunals. Industry, however, would have serious concerns with a new agency that diminished the functions and independence of [Read More]
Standing up for others is not optional
Online and offline, bullying is a serious workplace problem. When did Australia become a land of cowards who puff themselves up at the expense of others? Online bullying became a worldwide talking point in November 2008 when 49-yearold Lori Drew was convicted of [Read More]
Bill paves way for national IR system
Australia is one step closer to a national industrial relations system under draft laws the federal government has introduced to parliament. The legislation aims to end the overlap and duplication of state and federal workplace relations systems that continued to cause [Read More]
Pay gap a problem for both sexes
The gender pay gap is not just a ”women’s problem” and legislation should be renamed the Workplace Equality Act to ditch the stereotype, the Federal Government’s equal opportunity agency has argued. It has also called for the power to target [Read More]
PM backs Gillard over building watchdog
Unions will know in the next two weeks the extent of powers the new industrial body, Fair Work Australia, will have to oversee the building and construction industry. Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard has brushed off accusations the government has tried to silence [Read More]
New IR system was no guarantee: Rudd
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has backed away from a pledge that no worker would be left worse off by award modernisation, saying that remained the government’s objective but was never a guarantee. Under Labor’s overhaul of the system, more than 4,000 state and [Read More]
The Hon Julia Gillard MP
Media release Appointment of Executive Director to Fair Work Australia The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Julia Gillard, is pleased to announce the appointment of Ms Marion van Rooden as the Executive Director of the Fair Work Australia Establishment [Read More]
Fair Work Australia: A union-enforced straitjacket on workers
It is nearly two years since former Prime Minister John Howard’s government was defeated in an electoral landslide, in no small part due to opposition to its hated “Work Choices” laws, which helped employers impose individual contracts on workers. Workers were led to [Read More]
Business group accuses unions of meddling
A peak business group has accused the new workplace regulator Fair Work Australia of overstepping its power, claiming it is allowing unions to “frustrate democratic processes”. A series of decisions by Fair Work Australia to block or delay votes on workplace [Read More]
Inquiry recommends Fair Work be passed
The Rudd government has a mandate to reform the powers of the building and construction industry watchdog, Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard says. Her comments come after a Labor-dominated Senate committee released a report backing government plans to replace the [Read More]
