Sydney braces for train and bus strike tomorrow as unions meet with NSW transport minister

Combined rail unions say industrial action would be halted until end of September if government agrees to pay rise

As Sydneysiders brace for yet another day of disruptions on the train network on Wednesday, the heads of the state’s rail unions will be locked away with the New South Wales transport minister, David Elliott, in a bid to finally end a months-long industrial standoff.

The meeting – held amid another round of industrial action by the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) – marks the latest flashpoint in a protracted battle between a government beset by industrial strife and a union movement increasingly determined to flex its muscle.

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Increasing paid parental leave to 52 weeks would give billion-dollar boost to economy, unions say

In the lead-up to Labor’s jobs and skills summit, unions have also called for payments to match actual wages and the inclusion of superannuation

Unions have called for a massive expansion of paid parental leave by extending it to 52 weeks, paying parents their actual wage and including superannuation.

A report released by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) on Monday night has suggested halving the gap in women’s pay and participation would boost the economy by $111bn.

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Australia news live updates: Albanese says government will ‘stand by’ stage three tax cuts at press club speech

The PM says his government made the decision in 2019 ‘that we would stand by that legislation rather than re-litigate it’. Follow all the day’s news

Pocock pushes for scrapping of stage-three tax cuts

Independent senator David Pocock was on RN speaking about the stage-three tax cuts, which he says should be “resisted” – no matter what was promised before the election.

What I’ve said is that they should be revisited … [Anthony Albanese] has a really strong case to relook at these these tax cuts and see what what else that could actually be spent on, given the you know the huge amount of money that they represent.

Things have changed a lot since these were where they decided. We’ve had bushfires, a global pandemic. We’ve had flooding and stagnant wages, and now people are in a cost-of-living crisis across the country. And so I just don’t think that we can justify handing out $240bn over the next 10 years to the wealthiest Australians.

Ultimately, when we hit the budget in October – which is where these issues get reviewed every year – when you look at the budget, there will be things that we want to do that we can’t do. And that’s the reality of a trillion dollars of Liberal debt, particularly as inflation goes up. That debt now costs a lot more than it costs even a year ago.

So there will be things that that we would want to do that people would like us to do that aren’t going to be possible as an example. It’s basically saying, ‘Yeah, this is just too too expensive.’

We’re only in the second month of that new system. A lot of it was designed before we came to office and the contracts had all been signed before we came into office. So I’m still very mindful of what we can do. But the the challenges of the people who are in the system right now are exactly as you’ve described.

I think to live on $46 a day is incredibly difficult if not impossible.

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Australia’s jobs and skills summit: who’s going and what’s on the agenda?

Labor hopes together business, unions and the community sector will be able to find ways to lift wages, spur productivity and ease skills shortages

Lifting wages, productivity and easing skills shortages are top of the agenda at Thursday and Friday’s jobs and skills summit.

Here’s everything you need to know about the event.

Maintaining full employment and growing productivity

Equal opportunities and pay for women

Sustainable wage growth and the future of bargaining

Mega-trends driving our current and future skills needs

Workforce opportunities from clean energy and tackling climate change

Skills and training

Migration

Workforce participation

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Business lobby joins unions in calling for lift in minimum wages for skilled visa workers

Business Council of Australia also calls for migrant intake boost as Greens set up Senate standoff to raise wages in female-dominated industries

Big business has agreed with unions that the pay floor for temporary skilled visa workers should be raised to $90,000,in a split with smaller employer organisations that warned this could “kill” migration.

The Business Council of Australia (BCA) has also called for a two-year boost to the annual migration intake to 220,000 a year in a submission ahead of next week’s jobs and skills summit.

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Australia news live updates: Greens accuse government of undoing its own climate legislation

Adam Bandt reacts to Labor’s decision to open 46,000km of ocean to exploration, saying his party will continue to advocate for a moratorium on new coal and gas projects. Follow live

A massive haul of the drug “ice”, with an estimated street value of $1.6bn, has been seized in NSW in the largest discovery of its kind in Australia, AAP reports.

Last month, Australian Border Force officers homed in on a number of sea cargo containers that arrived at Port Botany in Sydney.

There would need a change to the law.. with the Liberals saying they’ll take an oppositional role, the only way that will happen is with the support of the Greens.

Our position is that workers should be able to bargain collectively at whatever level they choose.

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Fight over CFMEU’s ability to preselect candidates threatens to split NSW Labor left

Attempt to stop union from voting has prompted the soft left to threaten to divide the faction

An ugly preselection brawl within the New South Wales Labor left has threatened to split the faction ahead of the next state election, amid accusations of “rorts”, legal threats and ongoing criminal charges over allegations of union officials accepting bribes.

At the centre of the intra-factional fight is a bid by the hard left to block the powerful CFMEU and its allies from installing the prominent barrister Cameron Murphy into a winnable spot on the party’s upper house ticket ahead of the March election.

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‘Free riders’: NSW unions want to charge non-members for pay rises they broker

Exclusive: Peak body also wants employers to pay skilled visa applicants 30% above median wage to encourage local training instead

Non-union workers would be forced to pay fees for union pay deals while the requirement to advertise jobs domestically, before sponsoring foreign workers, would be abolished in favour of a higher wage floor, under two proposals by Unions NSW.

Under the plan employers could be forced to pay a skilled visa applicant 30% above the industry median wage before sponsoring an offshore worker, a move designed to incentivise training Australians.

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Unions and employers agree 40,000 more migrants a year needed to fill Australia’s skills shortage

Consensus on migration and increasing subsidies for apprentices could pave way for policy reform at government’s jobs and skills summit

Unions and employers have agreed Australia should lift its migration intake by 40,000 annually to help fill skills shortages and demanded a boost to apprentice subsidies.

The consensus suggests the Albanese government could secure broad support for some policy reform at its jobs and skills summit in September, although the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Acci) will use a major speech on Wednesday to reject more ambitious union requests.

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Union launches court case seeking up to $250m from McDonald’s Australia for alleged unpaid wages

Fast-food giant denied staff their rest break entitlements, the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association alleges

The union representing more than 250,000 former and current McDonald’s workers has slapped the fast-food giant with a major federal court action, seeking compensation of up to $250m for alleged unpaid wages.

The move is the 16th federal court action lodged against McDonald’s by the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA).

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Aged care reform first bill to pass lower house under Albanese government

Legislation enacting royal commission’s recommendations for sector expected to pass parliament despite opposition’s accusation of ‘playing politics’

The aged care sector has urged the new federal parliament to quickly pass delayed legislation enacting key recommendations of the royal commission, saying residents “can’t afford to wait any longer” for reforms around new funding, governance and conduct of staff.

A bill legislating the royal commission’s recommendations was the first to pass the House of Representatives and expected to easily and rapidly pass through the parliament. The Labor government is also calling on the Coalition opposition to back some of its central election promises, including mandating nurses in aged care facilities on a 24/7 basis.

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Unions warn Tony Burke against potential debate on the better-off-overall test

Workplace relations minister opens door to considering industrial relations changes as he announces gutting of building watchdog

Workplace relations minister Tony Burke has confirmed the current better-off-overall test that ensures workers do not go backwards will be on the table for discussion at the Albanese government’s jobs summit in September.

Burke said on Sunday he had been “sceptical” about having a conversation with employers and unions about the test, known as the Boot, at the September summit because he wanted Australian workers to have higher wages and conditions. The minister told the ABC he would “take some convincing” to overhaul the test.

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Albanese to restore Covid leave payment as emergency national cabinet meeting called

Australia’s chief medical officer will give a briefing to state and territory leaders on Saturday as government backflips on pandemic support

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Anthony Albanese will propose that Canberra and the states extend the pandemic leave payment during a snap national cabinet briefing that has been expedited to Saturday.

The government has spent the past week signalling the existing $750 payment would not be extended over the winter for budgetary reasons, but that decision has been reversed after mounting pressure from backbenchers, premiers, and health experts.

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Nation records 33 Covid deaths as Victoria reports fifth monkeypox case – as it happened

Mark Butler urges Australians to get boosters as new subvariant circulates; nation records 33 Covid deaths. This blog is now closed

Australia ‘deeply concerned by continuing erosion of Hong Kong’s rights’

Penny Wong, minister for foreign affairs, released a statement last night saying Australia remains “deeply concerned” by the continuing erosion of Hong Kong’s rights.

Australia remains deeply concerned by the continuing erosion of Hong Kong’s rights, freedoms and autonomy, two years since the imposition of the National Security Law.

The National Security Law has been applied broadly to arrest or pressure pro-democracy figures, opposition groups, the media, trade unions and civil society. The electoral reforms imposed by Beijing in 2021 have further eroded Hong Kong’s democratic governance.

This will be the fourth time the government has offered to make the changes, announced the changes, and then backtracked as a result of internal politics.

I’m just not sure where we go from here but our members are resolute. We are going to continue fighting to get these trains made safe, and we’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen.

It’s going to be a very messy day. It’ll be a weekend timetable with other trains taken out of it.

The families of the railway workers right now could be having $3,000 deposited in their account, instead of having that money spent on modifying perfectly good trains.

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Nation records 60 Covid deaths as SA reports first monkeypox case – as it happened

Nation records 60 Covid deaths; SA records first monkeypox case; Anthony Albanese meets Justin Trudeau at Nato summit. This blog is now closed

The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has renewed his calls for China to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, declaring that Vladimir Putin “has made a strategic mistake because what his actions have done is unite the democratic world”.

Albanese – who has been in Madrid for a Nato summit – spoke to reporters yesterday after having a meeting on the sidelines with the leaders of Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.

There we discussed the important focus of this Nato’s summit on the Asia-Pacific region. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has solidified the support amongst democratic countries for the rules-based international order and a determination to continue to provide support to the government and the people of Ukraine who are suffering as a result of this breach of international law and this brutal invasion by Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Vladimir Putin has made a strategic mistake because what his actions have done is unite the democratic world and provide a real determination to make sure that the resilience being shown by the Ukrainian people is backed up by resilience and support from democratic countries, including Nato, but also countries throughout the world.

Well, what we saw is prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we saw a without-limits partnership between Russia and China. We’ve seen a failure of China to condemn any of the Russian aggression that has occurred against Ukraine. China must look at what is happening and look at the resolve that is there from throughout the world and should be condemning Russia’s actions.

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Uber and Transport Workers’ Union strike agreement on gig economy employment standards

Ride-sharing giant and union support an independent regulatory body to create industry-wide standards and resolve disputes

Ride-sharing giant Uber and the Transport Workers’ Union have struck a landmark agreement on proposed employment standards and benefits ahead of expected new gig economy regulation from the Albanese government.

The union and Uber have also agreed to jointly support the creation of a new independent government-funded regulatory body to create industry-wide standards for ride share and food delivery gig workers following months of negotiations.

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Nation records 75 Covid deaths as data shows fatalities rising since March – as it happened

Australian Defence Force chiefs to have terms extended; nation records 75 Covid deaths as weekly fatalities double since March. This blog is now closed

The census shows that Christianity remains the country’s most common religion, AAP reports, with 43.9% of Australians identifying as Christian. But the number of followers continues to decline, dropping from 61.1% in 2011 and 52.1% in 2016.

Catholicism is the largest denomination, followed by Anglicanism. Other religions are growing: Hinduism was listed by 2.75% of respondents and Islam grew to 3.2%.

And close to 40% (38.9) have no religious affiliation, up from 22.3% in 2011 and 30.1% in 2016.

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Senior ministers to retire before Victoria’s election – as it happened

Housing market posts first monthly decline since September 2020; at least 52 Covid deaths recorded. This blog is now closed

Australian scientists celebrate world first

AAP is reporting that in a world first, Australian scientists have developed a device with “exquisite precision” that they say is a huge step towards a commercial quantum computer.

This is a remarkable piece of engineering. This experiment paves the way for larger and more complex quantum systems to be emulated in future.

It won’t be long before we can start to realise new materials that have never existed before.

All of this is just a fantasy because they don’t understand what actually happens at the bargaining table.

I think the Reserve Bank governor has weirdly changed his tune, he was the one who said so long as wages keep up with inflation and productivity, they are not inflationary.

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Family of Hungry Panda delivery rider killed at work awarded $834,000 in landmark decision

Family to receive compensation for death of Xiaojun Chen in what union says is first case where a gig economy worker has been considered an employee

The family of a Happy Panda delivery rider killed in Sydney in 2020 will receive more than $800,000 under the NSW workers’ compensation scheme, in what the union says is the first case where a gig economy worker has been considered an employee.

Xiaojun Chen was killed after being struck by a bus while riding his motorbike in the Sydney suburb of Zetland on 29 September 2020, while working for Hungry Panda.

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Public service shake-up continues with four new secretaries for government departments – as it happened

Dominic Perrottet called on to halt Barilaro appointment pending inquiry; at least 63 Covid deaths recorded nationwide. This blog is now closed

NSW teacher strike ‘about politics, not pay’, Kean says

Matt Kean has hit out at plans by public and Catholic school teachers to strike next Friday after receiving a 3% pay rise offer, well below the rate of inflation.

Our 3% pay increase is far more than the Labor government’s 1.5% pay increase for public servants down in Victoria.

So the same unions complaining about our generous pay rise up here in NSW and protesting aren’t marching in the streets down in Victoria.

A senior woman, a senior public servant with knowledge of financial markets and trade particularly with the United States was offered the job, it was rescinded by the New South Wales government.

We don’t know by whom. And then John Barilaro mysteriously was given it just last week.

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