Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The head of the Australian Medical Association says the federal government must “stop the blame game” and step in to relieve state and territory health systems buckling under high demand.
The AMA president, Dr Omar Khorshid, said the federal government had to “accept its responsibility for our national health system” and “sit down” with the states to resolve the issues during an appearance on Weekend Sunrise on Saturday.
More immigration, improved skills policy and simplifying collective bargaining have emerged as three top demands from employers for the new Labor government’s jobs summit.
Experts suggest the forum could also pave the way for reforms including wage theft legislation, which was dropped from the Coalition’s industrial relations bill, and action on union demands about insecure work.
The better off overall test so hypothetical patterns of work don’t prevent pay deals being approved;
The requirements for the FWC to be satisfied that genuine agreement has been reached;
The requirement for employers to explain the terms of a proposed pay deal to employees prior to the vote.
Economists and advocacy groups have seized on the Morrison government’s objection to lifting minimum wages by the inflation rate, noting benefits such as pensions are tied to how consumer prices change.
Prime minister Scott Morrison blasted comments by Labor leader Anthony Albanese on Wednesday that he would “absolutely” support wages keeping pace with prices. That call was “incredibly reckless”, Morrison said, adding that wage increases of 5%-plus were “like throwing fuel on the fire of rising interest rates and rising costs of living”.
Employers argue that excessive minimum pay increases will fuel inflation as unions call for ‘incredibly reasonable’ boost to meet cost-of-living pressures
Despite the warnings, the Australian Industry Group has raised its own submission to the Fair Work Commission from 2% to 2.5%, while the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has asked for low-paid workers to get a 3% rise.
Labor will promise a new measure to close the gender pay gap and attack the government for promoting “the importance of low paid work” in the campaign’s final fortnight.
On Sunday the shadow minister for women, Tanya Plibersek, confirmed another policy push on gender pay inequity, while the shadow industrial relations minister, Tony Burke, signalled a plan to weaponise the Coalition’s submission to the minimum wage review.
Teachers in New South Wales will go ahead with a planned strike on Wednesday despite an 11th-hour plea from the government for the union to delay action until after the June budget.
Teachers will walk off the job for the second time in five months, amid long-running concerns over wages and conditions. It is the latest in a series of strikes in the state’s public service, with train drivers, nurses and paramedics recently taking such industrial action.
More than 6,500 reports of understaffing and unsafe conditions in Australia’s aged care sector, including hundreds of reports of resident injuries, will be handed to the regulator on Wednesday.
The reports, from United Workers Union (UWU) whistleblower site Aged Care Watch, identified thousands of instances of aged care residents’ safety suffering due to unfilled shifts and understaffing.
Australia’s lowest-paid workers should get a 5% pay rise – or $2,000 more a year, according to a submission from unions to the industrial umpire.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has called for the minimum wage to increase from $20.33 an hour to $21.35, to boost the wages of 2.67m employees who rely on the annual wage review for a pay rise.
Aged care workers are being priced out of their communities, with low wages and rising living costs leaving a worker in a typical two-parent household with $34 of disposable income each week, and a single parent full-time worker unable to cover basic expenses.
The findings come from a report published on Wednesday by the Australian Aged Care Collaboration (AACC), a group of six aged care peak bodies. The report compared average wages for workers in the residential and home care sectors against key cost of living indicators including average rents, childcare expenses, grocery costs, and petrol.
Daniel Andrews was gearing up for a fight with lobby groups, but the main prize was in the electorate
For the second time in a month the Andrews government this week unfurled a big social reform to be funded by a levy on business.
And for the second time in a month, it provoked outrage from the usual quarters, including the state opposition, the federal government and industry groups.
The long-running dispute between the New South Wales rail union and the state government again threatens to shut down Sydney’s train network, as the transport minister David Elliott accused workers of “industrial bastardy” for the second time in three weeks over planned industrial action.
On Tuesday the secretary of the Rail, Tram and Bus Union, Alex Claassens, threatened to use industrial action to force the government to offer free fares to commuters, as it continues to ramp up its long-running dispute over pay and conditions.
Jumping back to the Sydney train situation for a moment and the Rail, Tram and Bus Union state secretary, Alex Claassens,is discussing the return of limited train services with ABC News Breakfast:
Apparently, where we ended up late last night was we negotiated an outcome where trains will run today. We finally managed to get the management team to see some common sense and today they will be operating a service roughly around the half-hour to 15-minute mark.
They will then try and improve on that during the day. We will work together as much as we can to try to get as many trains on the tracks as we can, and you can imagine our disappointment yesterday morning when we got up like everybody else in Sydney to realise some genius had made a decision to cancel all of our train services.
AGL Energy has rejected a takeover bid by tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes and Canadian asset management giant Brookfield, saying the preliminary offer “materially undervalues the company”.
Brookfield and Cannon-Brookes’ Grok Ventures made the extraordinary offer to take over Australia’s most polluting company on Saturday, with a goal to shut its coal power plants earlier than planned.
A New South Wales government plan to control feral horses in Kosciuszko national park will allow horses to remain in the only known habitat of one of Australia’s most imperilled freshwater fishes and risks pushing the species closer to extinction.
Conservationists say allowing horses to continue to roam around some sections of the park will put vulnerable wildlife and ecosystems at risk.
There are lot of reasons even though they don’t get as sick as adults, they have a pretty strong role in spreading it back to family members and of course that can include parents and also, of greater concern, the grandparents. The older you are, the impacts of getting seriously ill or worse with Covid is greater.
The other reason is just so kids can do what kids are meant to do – go to school, play with their friends, do sport, do exercise, do social things.
The Fair Work Commission has ruled a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for all workers at BHP’s Mt Arthur coalmine was unlawful because the company did not consult adequately with its workers.
Approximately 50 mine workers were stood down without pay last month after they were told they would be required to have had at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to enter the work site after 9 November, and that they would need to be fully vaccinated by 31 January next year.
Australian Labor party gathers online to endorse slimmed-down election platform and debate industrial relations, trade and foreign affairs. Follow all the latest updates, live
Labor’s policy should be framed to provide a positive and compassionate approach by a Labor Government to the treatment of refugees, rather than a reaction to the punitive and cruel approach of the Coalition Government. Refugees and those seeking asylum in Australia are to be welcomed under a Labor Government as assets who enhance this nation and our economy and provide positive contribution to our strong multicultural society.
In this chapter, Michael Danby will move this motion:
Labor calls on China to abide by its own constitution and laws which expressly allows for the cultural autonomy of the Tibetan people within the People’s Republic.
Tibetans must be allowed, as they are under Chinese law, to freely practice their religion, to learn and speak their language and to have official documents in the language of the vast majority of people living in the Tibetan autonomous zone.
Pared-back bill now relates only to casual employment; government faces scrutiny over its botched vaccine booking website. Follow all the latest updates
Doctors’ group lashes out at Liberal MP, saying ‘all public figures’ should ‘act responsibly’; Morrison government to face pressure on jobkeeper and jobseeker. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
Ed Husic is also asked about the CFMEU ad that depicts Scott Morrison driving a literal bus (called the omnibus) towards workers, which is meant to illustrate workers being hit by IR changes, and whether it goes too far:
Husic:
Some of the unions, or some people will try and characterise it in that way, and whether or not that works in their favour, to be putting it bluntly, I think there is a genuine concern about what the government’s industrial relations reforms will do, what impact they will have on working people.
When you go through the detail of what they are proposing, they will be seeing the greatest burden placed on working Australians and it’s just wrong. They shouldn’t have cuts to their take-home pay.
Ed Husic is on the ABC this afternoon, where he is asked about the topic of the day – government backbencher Craig Kelly and the government’s leadership refusal to censure him.
Husic:
The prime minister occupies an important place in the country, the words of the prime minister matter, the actions mean even more, and in this case allowing Craig Kelly to just keep rolling on the way he is, to undermine the investment of taxpayer dollars, in information campaigns to embrace the inoculation process, to help us deal with a Covid-19 pandemic that has crippled the economy for the best part of 2020, resulted in 2 million Australians being unemployed or underemployed and the vaccine bringing one way to bring us closer to normal, as it were, this is just wrong, that you could have a government MP being allowed by virtue of inaction by the prime minister for that to continue.
It shouldn’t, and if he did take this matter seriously it would be reined in and it wouldn’t be an issue and you and me wouldn’t be talking about it.
Sydney to keep 10-visitor rule but from 24-26 December children under 12 not counted; lockdown continues in half of northern beaches, but small Christmas gatherings allowed. Follow all the latest news and updates, live
The Northern Territory has revoked its categorisation of New South Wales region Illawarra as a coronavirus hotspot.
Health minister Natasha Fyles made the announcement this afternoon following an emergency cabinet meeting, saying the decision was made because there were no cases from the northern beaches there.
This is based on the evidence that they’ve had no cases from the northern beaches coronavirus cluster. I know people are anxiously awaiting other local government areas, but the advice from our chief health officer Hugh Heggie ... is that it is safe to remove that hotspot declaration for the Illawarra Shire local government area. The others will remain in place.
Victoria is reminding people from greater Sydney, the Central Coast or the northern beaches to not attempt to enter Victoria, just in case you might have forgotten.
If you have been in Greater Sydney, the Central Coast, or Sydney's Northern Beaches since Dec 11 please do not attempt to enter Victoria. Only people who have exclusively visited or travelled through other parts of NSW can apply for a Border Crossing Permit to enter Vic. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/bad8irfvqn
As soon as it’s safe to open back up to NSW, we will. For now, we’re making sure Victoria can stay safe and stay open.