Tasmania's Rockliff Government is weighing options for the future of the Tasmanian Industrial Commission after its president's term expired recently and the attorney-general last year revealed plans to fold the tribunal into TasCAT.
After NSW IRC President Ingmar Taylor recently confessed he is "somewhat evangelical" about the efficiencies of paperless hearings and suggested they will become the norm across all courts and tribunals, he has now issued a practice note for fully-electronic proceedings.
The NSW Minns Government has further bolstered the state's Industrial Relations Commission, appointing former director of public prosecutions Lloyd Babb SC as a deputy president and judicial member.
One of the CFMEU's most controversial officials has had his state entry permit revoked, after an IR tribunal full bench used new laws to revisit his lengthy criminal history and consider threats last year to "rip out the heart" of a sub-contractor's representative.
A NSW IRC full bench will on Thursday decide public sector nurses' special case bid for a 35% pay rise, while the state union's employees will get a 5% increase and a one-off "cost of living allowance" under a proposed agreement variation.
The NSW IRC is today livestreaming the first day of a lengthy hearing to determine a work value claim on behalf of public hospital doctors seeking to bridge an alleged 30% pay gap, in what their union says is the biggest case in the tribunal's history.
A government department has won an appeal against a finding that a QNMU delegate's decision to send confidential patient information to her home email during a dispute with her unit manager did not constitute misconduct because she did not "deliberately" breach accepted standards.
The NSW IRC last year received 36% more applications than in 2023, while cases finalised dropped by 16%, according to its latest annual report, which takes in the first six months of its renewed powers.
NSW IR Minister Sophie Cotsis says a Bill providing for the CFMEU State branch's mining and energy division and its manufacturing division to disamalgamate will guard against threats or "adverse conduct", while avoiding overlapping eligibility rules for at least a decade.
The Minns Government has passed major reforms that establish anti-bullying and s-xual harassment jurisdictions in the IRC and allow workers to seek preventative orders and up to $100,000 in damages, while also significantly lifting the small claims cap.
