The Morrison Government's religious discrimination legislation permits faith-based employers to discriminate against workers on the basis of their "religious belief or activity" if it is connected to their position as an employee or prevents them performing inherent requirements.
The Morrison Government has today introduced legislation in response to two Migrant Workers' Taskforce recommendations to make it an offence to pressure temporary migrant workers to breach their visa conditions and to create a new power to ban employers that underpay them.
Unions and employer organisations will be barred from refusing membership or the benefits of it on the basis of religious beliefs or activity, but faith-based organisations will be allowed to engage in biased employment practices under the Morrison Government's proposed religious discrimination legislation, which is likely to be introduced to Federal Parliament tomorrow.
Federal Labor's 'Same Job, Same Pay' legislation introduced into Parliament yesterday has won the endorsement of IR legal expert Anthony Forsyth, who says it represents the "next necessary step" in addressing the undesirable effects of labour hire workers being engaged for lengthy periods on lower wages and conditions than direct employees.
Federal Opposition leader Anthony Albanese this morning confirmed his determination to make working conditions a major battleground in the upcoming Federal election with his introduction of a private member's bill aimed at erasing the gap between directly-employed and labour hire workers.
Unions have branded further legislation by the Morrison Government to protect migrant workers as "inadequate, given the scale and of nature" of exploitation, a view endorsed by a leading academic researcher.
The Attorney-General's Department will open a consultation process in December on six of the outstanding recommendations in Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins' landmark Respect@Work report, but the Opposition says the timeline leaves no room for legislation ahead of the federal election, expected by May.
WA's McGowan Government has again introduced legislation boosting anti-bullying and sexual harassment laws, inspector powers and penalties for non-compliance as part of an overhaul of its State IR system.
The NSW Supreme Court has backed the State government's use of Public Health Orders to make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory for certain categories of workers, dismissing arguments that the directions compromised objectors' "right" to choose what they put in their bodies.
The more than one million retail workers need more stable rosters, better pay and greater job security, along with flexible and affordable childcare, to enable them to meet their caring responsibilities, according to a new university study commissioned by the SDA.
