DEWR still has 3.5 million outmoded Work Choices booklets in storage at a cost of $54,000 a year, while the Government is spending up to $5m to advertise the Government's latest fairness test changes, as part of a $54m, three-year campaign, a Senate Estimates committee heard yesterday.
The Howard Government will provide $370m in extra funding for administration and enforcement of the safety net changes introduced into Parliament today, including more than $100m in the next financial year.
Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey has this evening introduced legislation to introduce a no disadvantage test for workplace agreements, including AWAs applying to workers on base pay of $75,000 or less.
Employment Advocate Peter McIlwain, who will be responsible for administering the new fairness test, has today been accused by Labor senators of being misleading and evasive in his answers to Senate committee questions about the OEA's collection of data on removal of protected conditions under AWAs.
Legislative amendments to protect employees who ask about their employment entitlements has passed the Victorian Parliament, after Labor combined with the Nationals and Liberals to defeat further changes sought by the Greens in the Upper House.
A NSW hospital has been ordered to pay a nurse $26,000 in damages for discriminating against her and victimising her by failing to return her to her previous duties when she resumed work after maternity leave.
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The AIRC has ordered the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to provide records of employee counselling sessions with a key witness in a controversial unfair dismissal case, despite government objections that the documents were confidential and subject to public interest immunity.
The introduction of Work Choices has seen an explosion in the number of businesses using service trusts - via $2 companies - to employ their workers, according to the LHMU.
