Both Queensland and WA today appeared to make headway in the States' and unions' High Court IR challenge - Queensland with its argument that the corporations power couldn't regulate activities outside those that defined a corporation as such, and WA with its submission that the Work Choices exclusion of state and territory laws went too far.
Victoria this morning told the High Court that the Work Choices amendments should be found invalid because the Constitution's labour power limits the operation of the corporations power, on which the new laws are founded.
Unions NSW this afternoon targeted the Work Choices laws on registered organisations when it became the third party to appear in the state/union High Court challenge to the Federal Government's IR legislation.
AIRC Vice President Michael Lawler today ordered the first secret ballot for industrial action under the Work Choices Act, following a successful application by the CFMEU.
In a response to the strictures imposed by the federal Work Choices regime, NSW's Iemma Government is planning to extend union right of entry for OHS purposes.
The NSW Government this afternoon argued before the High Court's seven-member full bench that the Constitution's corporation power did not have the reach to support the Federal Government's Work Choices legislation.
A record 39 barristers fronted the High Court in Canberra today, as the states and unions began their six-day constitutional challenge to the Work Choices legislation.
The CFMEU has applied for a secret ballot for industrial action at a New South Wales coal mine in a plan to meet the Work Choices' voting requirement in less than a week.
The third application for a secret ballot for industrial action under Work Choices before the AIRC failed today as the ANF prepared to pursue its test case of the contentious laws tomorrow.
The Howard Government's world-first Independent Contractors Bill - to be introduced late this month or early next - will continue the owner-driver protections that exist in NSW and Victoria, import unfair contracts provisions from the Workplace Relations Act and provide three-year transitional arrangements for employees "deemed" to be employees under state IR laws, according to Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews.