A Senate inquiry has urged Public Service Minister Michaelia Cash to intervene in the federal public sector bargaining dispute and soften the "intransigent" Coalition's "brutally hard-line" bargaining policy by relaxing the 2% wages cap and removing the prohibition on backpay, but Government senators have flatly rejected the recommendations.
Labor and Greens senators are calling on the Federal Government to establish a new authority to provide a "just transition" for workers expected to lose jobs during the shift away from coal-fired power generation, but the Coalition says it would just increase bureaucracy.
Justice Susan Kiefel is set to be the High Court's first female chief justice on the retirement of the incumbent, Robert French, while Federal Court Justice James Edelman is to join her on the bench.
Former Public Service Commissioner Andrew Podger has told a Senate inquiry that getting rid of bargaining altogether in the federal public sector would improve productivity.
The Turnbull Government’s plan to push its IR bills through the Senate have been thrown into doubt by legal questions over the eligibility of two crossbench senators.
The CFMEU construction and general division's Victorian branch is appealing a Federal Court decision that barred the union from paying an $18,000 penalty against an organiser after the judge concluded the union received part of its income from government grants.
The Coalition should have sought a "more extensive mandate" on IR and run a more active campaign on the subject during the last election, rather than supplementing the ABCC and ROC bills with a "last minute minor change on CFA volunteers", according to Abbott Government Employment Minister Eric Abetz.
The UFU's proposed High Court bid to overturn the CFA legislation is "misconceived and likely to fail", according to Employment Minister Michaelia Cash, who is confident the new law will survive any challenge.
The Turnbull Government has today lost the most hard-line backer of IR deregulation on the Senate crossbench with the resignation of former HR Nicholls officeholder Bob Day.
The Department of Employment has clawed back $54 million from failed businesses in the first 12 months of its enhanced program to recover funds outlaid under the Fair Entitlements Guarantee, more than doubling the previous year's figure.
