Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus has appointed senior FWC executive Kate Scarlett as a general member of the new Administrative Review Tribunal, while Victorian IR Minister and former ACTU assistant secretary Tim Pallas is stepping down and leaving parliament and former FWC president Iain Ross is to serve on the Reserve Bank's critical monetary policy board.
Former federal Workplace Relations Minister Chris Evans has been appointed Australia's first Anti-Slavery Commissioner, responsible for improving victim support and helping employers address supply-chain risks such as forced labour and debt bondage.
Long-serving Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association secretary Steve Purvinas says he has resigned to move on to "less stressful" pastures in the face of mounting opposition to his methods.
A federal court full bench has remitted a case for retrial after a judge facing impending retirement reproduced "significant" portions of a worker's submissions without attribution in an adverse action case and failed to "bring an independent mind" to his determination.
The WA IRC has made interim orders removing the recently reappointed leader of the ANMF's West Australian branch, Mark Olson, paving the way for the union council member who launched the challenge to take over his post.
Two new FWC members have invoked Jon Bon Jovi, author Frank Hardy and a former MinterEllison senior partner at a ceremony welcoming them to the tribunal, with one vowing to show respect to "sometimes angry and truculent" parties and the other recalling decades devoted to trying to help people "have a voice and get that voice heard".
Newly-installed CFMEU construction division administrator Mark Irving KC has told members that "militancy in accordance with the [Fair Work] Act" is not unlawful and that the union will not make political donations or take "positions" at ALP conferences while he is in charge.
A welcome ceremony for new FWC Vice President Mark Gibian has heard he is a polite but "devastating" cross-examiner renowned for his calm court manner, while an employer representative said the Albanese Government has removed from the Bar one of the "sharpest tools unions have in their toolbox".
FWC Deputy President Val Gostencnik is among nine new judges appointed to the Federal Circuit and Family Court from today to increase its capacity to hear protection visa and migration cases.
