Employment Minister Michaelia Cash said last night that she made an offer to the Opposition to split-off into a separate Bill elements of the "four-yearly review" legislation that enable the FWC to overlook technical and minor errors in agreements, after tribunal president Iain Ross twice wrote asking her to urgently secure its passage.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash says one of her staffers has resigned after admitting he leaked information to the media about the AFP raids on the AWU yesterday.
The Fair Work Commission says its failure to meet timeliness targets for agreement approvals is partly due to the delay in passage of the Turnbull Government's legislation that would enable it to overlook minor or technical flaws in proposed deals.
Employment Minister Michaelia Cash has told a Senate Estimates committee that she had no obligation to disclose the resignation of ABCC deputy commissioner and in-house counsel Anthony Southall QC and that she only became aware yesterday of his reasons for departing.
The Department of Employment has told a Senate inquiry that it didn't consult unions on the "ensuring integrity" legislation until just two days before its introduction to Parliament.
The Coalition's legislation that would raise maximum fines from $750.000 to $10 million for secondary boycotts is no certainty to become law after Nick Xenophon Team senators joined the Greens and Labor to declare it would not support it.
The ACTU has taken aim at the proposed public interest test for union amalgamations, saying there is no basis for the Turnbull Government's claim that it is the equivalent of the competition test for corporate mergers.
