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Industrial relations reform may the key to securing the electoral support of Central Queensland and its workers, but the devil is in the details if Senator Murray Watt’s recent visit to Rockhampton is anything to go by.
Mr Watt visited Rockhampton’s CFMEU office last Friday to promote the policies to do with casualisation, particularly in the resources sector, that Federal Labor will bring to the next election.
“We understand the export dollars, the royalties, the jobs that the resources sector produces, and we think it’s got a really bright future here in Central Queensland,” he said, but promised a “real crackdown on the kind of cowboy labour hire firms that unfortunately we’ve seen proliferate throughout Central Queensland over the last few years”.
The Victorian Liberal Nationals are calling on the Premier to publicly denounce the offensive television ad launched by the Electrical Trades Union (ETU).
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Employment law proposals set to impact Australia’s employers in 2021
2021 is set to be a bumper year for employment law changes with a number of wide-ranging proposals in the pipeline.
The Coalition government’s Industrial Relations reform bill, which was unveiled at the end of 2020, is likely to have the biggest impact on employers across the country.
HRD spoke to Kyle Scott, director of the Australian Business Lawyers & Advisors (ABLA) about some of the key areas for employers to watch this year.
Defining a casual employee
The most far-reaching aspect of the proposed Fair Work Amendment bill looks to create a statutory definition of a casual employee for the first time.
Union thug John Setka and his CFMEU cronies are the beneficiaries, but are not the cause of our fractured industrial relations system. It s a sham system that not only fails to block corrupt unions like the CFMEU, but seems to support them. How else could regular workplace thuggery be tolerated? Why else could the intimidation flourish? How else could taxpayers be gouged billions extra for vital public works? Could it be because of a cosy relationship with the top-tier building firms who win all the lucrative jobs, the industry groups like the Master Builders Association, and the unions? Collectively, this group must share responsibility for adding billions to the cost of vital infrastructure like schools, universities, hospitals and freeways.