The president of a nursing "red union" faces the sack from her hospital job after failing to persuade an appeal court that unauthorised media comments fell under protected industrial activity.
Adelaide University Professor of Law Andrew Stewart says he expects the Closing Loopholes Bill to be substantially amended before it is passed into law, to narrow some provisions and add others, giving employers time to "start thinking about the implications" and prepare for "big and important changes".
IR academic Chris F Wright has urged the Senate inquiry into the Closing Loopholes Bill to "recommend support" for the legislation, which he says is needed to update a regulatory framework that has "not adapted to fundamental changes in the labour market".
Federal Parliament has passed a trio of bills that establish the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service as an independent statutory HR agency and overhaul employment arrangements for parliamentary staff.
Employers can comply with the new "positive duty" to eliminate sexual harassment and sex discrimination by fostering a respectful culture, ensuring workers have avenues to report incidents, and taking a "risk-based" approach to prevention, according to Human Rights Commission guidance.
A leading IR lawyer says the Albanese Government's third tranche casuals provisions are a win for employers as they will provide "considerable certainty", but he predicts an ambiguous independent contracting test will produce "windfall gains and windfall losses".
A leading labour law academic says the drafting of the Albanese Government's latest swathe of IR changes is "complex" but the reformed approach to defining an employee is "really significant" and new labour hire provisions are likely to prevent employers from evading agreements via outsourcing.
The Albanese Government's legislative changes to "close the labour hire loophole" will rely on aggrieved parties seeking orders from the FWC to ensure on-hire workers are paid the same rates as those in the host employer's enterprise agreement.
Employers face ten years in prison and maximum fines of $8 million or up to three times the stolen sum if it exceeds the cap, under new criminal sanctions in the Albanese Government's "Closing Loopholes" legislation, to be introduced into Federal Parliament tomorrow.
