Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has highlighted the positive duty imposed on employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sex discrimination, sexual harassment and victimisation under its Respect@Work legislation, which passed Parliament this afternoon.
The Albanese Government had dropped contentious "cost neutrality" provisions from its Respect@Work Bill and will refer the matter to the Attorney-General's Department, which will conduct a review.
Following a FWC decision to pay an interim 15% rise to some aged care workers, a reconstituted bench has laid out a provisional schedule to consider phasing it in, to see whether extra increases are justified and if workers who are not directly engaged should also get a pay boost.
The Albanese Government's Secure Jobs, Better Pay Bill, introduced today, ushers in a new multi-employer bargaining regime, but with safeguards that will bar participation by unions with a record of flouting workplace laws, limit industrial action to those in a "supported bargaining stream" and exclude the commercial construction sector.
The Albanese Government's first major tranche of IR legislation beefs-up workers' rights to secure flexible working arrangements and empowers the FWC to arbitrate if conciliation of a refused request fails.
The Senate Work and Care inquiry's Labor and Greens majority is urging the Albanese Government to move swiftly to consider a right to disconnect, make flexibility requests an enforceable right and provide "roster justice" by ensuring workers with variable hours have predictability and certainty, in a 152-page interim report tabled this afternoon.
The Albanese Government will phase-in an increase in the total package of federally-funded paid parental leave from the current 20 weeks to 26 weeks between 2024 and 2026.
The ANMF has told the Senate work and care inquiry that ordinary full-time hours should be reduced from 38 hours to 32 to enable workers to achieve a better balance of work and caring responsibilities.
