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The AMWU and CEPU have been granted their secret ballot applications for industrial action at BP's oil refinery at Bulwer Island near Brisbane after the AIRC rejected the company's claim that they were not genuinely trying to reach an agreement.

Both Prime Minister John Howard and Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews today sought to get the Coalition onto the front foot in the IR public opinion battle. The ACTU and ALP, however, quickly countered with their own attack on the claims Andrews was making about their Work Choices campaign.

The AIRC has approved applications for ballots for industrial action at Visy Plastic's Villawood site in western Sydney after rejecting AiG arguments that three unions involved were pattern bargaining and not genuinely trying to reach an agreement.

In a tacit admission that the Government is struggling to convince the public of the merits of the Work Choices changes, Prime Minister John Howard has today appointed Human Services Minister Joe Hockey to help Workplace Relations Minister Kevin Andrews to promote the legislation and counter the "misinformation" campaign by unions and Labor.

John Holland Group has settled the Supreme Court claims for damages and penalties it brought against the CFMEU's WA branch last year and this year, with branch secretary Kevin Reynolds saying it "wasn't a large settlement as these things go".

Victorian Workplace Rights Advocate Tony Lawrence has expressed concern about the legality and fairness of AWAs being offered by Global Tele Sales' Lufthansa call centre in Melbourne.

The AFPC has attracted a raft of submissions from churches on its first minimum pay determination, providing its chair and prominent Anglican Ian Harper with some challenging views on religious approaches to wages policy.

SA Unions says child labour laws needed; Vale Phillipa Weeks; Esso workers's safety concern was reasonable, says tribunal; Queensland IR minister to retire; and Tasmanian parliamentary committee to scrutinise Work Choices.

The OWS's investigation into the union movement's television ad campaign was again in the political spotlight today: ACTU secretary Greg Combet wrote to director Nick Wilson seeking an explanation as to how his office's report was leaked to the Daily Telegraph; Opposition Leader Kim Beazley referred to the OWS as "snivelling liars"; and the Prime Minister John Howard told a party room meeting that the Government needed to be more aggressive in attacking the "bodgy" claims the ACTU was making.

The AIRC has today refused to grant a secret ballot order to the AMWU, after finding it hadn't genuinely tried to reach agreement when it included prohibited content in its bargaining claim at a Geelong engineering company.