Royal Commissioner Dyson Heydon has rejected union applications for him to stand down from the inquiry on the grounds of apprehended bias, while acknowledging they could still apply to a court to make such a ruling.
The Federal Court has ordered former HSU national secretary Kathy Jackson to repay about $1.4 million to her old union, in an important judgment on the conduct of officers in registered organisations.
Ten industry associations and non-government groups, including the AiG, BCA and ACTU, are today calling for net zero emissions of greenhouse gases, ahead of UN climate negotiations in November.
Confirming this afternoon that he will run against ACTU secretary Dave Oliver at the peak body's May Congress, assistant secretary Tim Lyons said that unions needed to stop defining themselves by what they opposed and become the champion of the nation's working people.
In a move that the government has dismissed as a political stunt, the ACTU has told Employment Minister Eric Abetz he should suspend his IR legislative agenda for at least a year to enable the Heydon trade union inquiry and the Productivity Commission Fair Work Act review to run their course.
In a wide-ranging attack on the Heydon Royal Commission, ACTU assistant secretary Tim Lyons has dubbed it as part of a conservative agenda to restrict "organising, industrial action, right of entry, public campaigning, political action and expenditure, litigation, access to arbitration and the right to be self-governing".
The ACTU is seeking in the FWC's four-yearly review of modern awards to introduce an across-the-board entitlement to 10 days a year of paid family and domestic violence leave.
The ACTU will push for the Fair Work Commission's four-year modern award review to create a common clause giving more than two million casual workers the right to become permanent employees.
