Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull wants the Fair Work Commission to phase-in the planned cuts to some Sunday penalty rates over a period of years, to ensure that workers' take-home pay is protected, while the tribunal has timetabled the next stage of the penalties case.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash has asked the Opposition to back new legislation that would scrap the Fair Work Act's mandatory four-yearly reviews of modern awards.
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.
