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.
Comcare's chief executive has told a Senate Estimates hearing that her organisation has completed its investigation of FWC member Gerard Boyce's alleged use of fireworks at a tribunal after-hours function.
FWC President Iain Ross wrote to Deputy President Lyndall Dean after her controversial dissent in the Kimber compulsory vaccination ruling and alerted IR Minister Michaelia Cash to the correspondence, a Senate committee heard this evening.
Queensland police officers have failed to convince a Queensland IRC full bench that the Police Commissioner failed to consult them on a COVID-19 vaccine workforce mandate or lacked power to issue it, but the State's Supreme Court has opened the way for another challenge.
Victoria's Supreme Court is this morning livestreaming a hearing into a major challenge to mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations, with more than 100 health, construction and education workers and others arguing it breaches the State's Human Rights Charter.
Two of Australia's largest employers, retailers Woolworths and Coles, have today announced mandatory vaccination policies that will be rolled out in coming months.
The CFMMEU's mining and energy division has asked the FWC to halt the rollout of BHP's mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy at the Mt Arthur open cut coal mine in the Hunter Valley, claiming it is not a lawful and reasonable direction.
A Supreme Court judge has slapped down a FWC presidential member's "clarion call" for Australians to "vigorously" reject the notion of mandatory COVID-19 jabs, questioning her assertions about the efficacy of vaccines and declaring it is not her role to challenge the validity or appropriateness of public health orders.
Employers are generally on "solid ground" in suspending or dismissing workers who refuse reasonable directions to be vaccinated to perform their jobs, but face a range of practical difficulties if they take such action, according to Adelaide University Professor of Law, Andrew Stewart.
An FWC full bench has today found errors in a ruling that upheld a private school's sacking of a 52-year-old teacher for hugging students and other misdeeds, but has refused to overturn it.
