Bills Digest No. 128 2002-03
Workplace Relations Amendment (Award Simplification)
Bill 2002
WARNING:
This Digest was prepared for debate. It reflects the legislation as
introduced and does not canvass subsequent amendments. This Digest
does not have any official legal status. Other sources should be
consulted to determine the subsequent official status of the
Bill.
CONTENTS
Passage History
Purpose
Background
Main Provisions
Concluding Comments
Endnotes
Contact Officer & Copyright Details
Passage History
Workplace Relations Amendment (Award
Simplification) Bill 2002
Date Introduced: 13 November 2002
House: House of Representatives
Portfolio: Employment and Workplace Relations
Commencement: No later than the day after 6
months of the Act receiving Royal Assent
Purpose
To reduce the
number of allowable matters in federal awards and provide for a 12
month review of awards during which they will be expected to be
amended (varied) so that they comply with the Bill. Federal awards
prescribe employment conditions such as wages, classifications,
annual leave, sick leave and other entitlements (or obligations).
The scope of the provisions which federal awards may address is
governed by an item-by-item prescription of matters which the
Workplace Relations Act 1996 specifies as allowable. The
Act provides some scope for the Australian Industrial Relations
Commission (AIRC) to develop principles on award simplification,
but the Bill prescribes certain award matters previously sanctioned
by the AIRC as 'non-allowable'. The rationale is to encourage award
matters to be negotiated in enterprise agreements, as the Hon. Tony
Abbott MP noted in his
Second Reading Speech to this Bill.(1)
The Workplace Relations and Other
Legislation Amendment Act 1996 (WROLA) amended and re-named
the Industrial Relations Act 1988 as the Workplace
Relations Act 1996 (WR Act). Part 2 of Schedule
5 of WROLA provided transitional provisions(2) under
which federal awards existing in 1997 were required to be reviewed
so that award clauses would comply with the WR Act's 'new'
prescriptions on the content of awards. The WR Act stipulates the
role and contents of awards under a number of provisions,
particularly section
89A and section
143. Section
88B prescribes the role of the AIRC in maintaining an award
safety net.
Section
89A of the WR Act prescribes the matters which awards may
address. It stipulates that awards must prescribe minimum rates as
well as prescribing other requirements. Following agreement with
the Australian Democrats, the initial eighteen allowable matters
proposed by the WROLA Bill became twenty allowable matters under
the WR Act (subsection 89A(2)). These are:
-
- (a) classifications of employees and skill-based career
paths;
-
- (b) ordinary time hours of work and the times within which they
are performed, rest breaks, notice periods and variations to
working hours;
-
- (c) rates of pay generally (such as hourly rates and annual
salaries), rates of pay for juniors, trainees or apprentices, and
rates of pay for employees under the supported wage system;
-
- (d) piece rates, tallies and bonuses;
-
- (e) annual leave and leave loadings;
-
- (f) long service leave;
-
- (g) personal/carer's leave, including sick leave, family leave,
bereavement leave, compassionate leave, cultural leave and other
like forms of leave;
-
- (h) parental leave, including maternity and adoption
leave;
-
- (i) public holidays;
-
- (j) allowances;
-
- (k) loadings for working overtime or for casual or shift
work;
-
- (l) penalty rates;
-
- (m) redundancy pay;
-
- (n) notice of termination;
-
- (o) stand-down provisions;
-
- (p) dispute settling procedures;
-
- (q) jury service;
-
- (r) type of employment, such as full-time employment, casual
employment, regular part-time employment and shift work; and
-
- (s) superannuation;
-
- (t) pay and conditions for outworkers, but only to the extent
necessary to ensure that their overall pay and conditions of
employment are fair and reasonable in comparison with the pay and
conditions of employment specified in a relevant award or awards
for employees who perform the same kind of work at an employer's
business or commercial premises.
Section
143 of the WR Act stipulates that award provisions are to be
modern, written in plain English, non-discriminatory, not prescribe
restrictive work practices of the enterprises bound by awards, nor
contain matters of detail best dealt with by agreement at the
enterprise or workplace level.
Non-allowable matters and review as proposed by
the Bill
The Bill proposes to delete the following from
allowable award matters:
-
- skill-based career paths from subsection 89A(2)(a), but
classifications are to be retained
- bonuses from subsection 89A(2)(d), but piece rates are to be
retained
- long service leave, currently allowed under subsection
89A(2)(f)
- notice of termination, currently allowed subsection 89A(2)(n),
and
- jury service, currently allowed under subsection
89A(2)(f).
As a result of this Bill, the current twenty
allowable matters would become seventeen allowable matters. Also,
the Bill proposes that award clauses dealing with the following
issues are not to be considered as allowable:
-
- transfers between work locations
-
- cultural leave, which is to be replaced with a more specific
and restrictive form of ceremonial leave for Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander (ATSI) peoples
-
- extra public holidays above those specified as public holidays
by a State/Territory government, eg union picnic days
-
- leave for training and study purposes
-
- recording of employees' worktimes
-
- accident make-up pay
-
- exclusive union representation of members in dispute settling
processes
-
- movement of employees between forms of employment, eg casual to
on-going
-
- number or proportion of employees which an employer may employ
in a classification and any other award regulation on the
employment of persons in particular classifications, and
-
- maximum or minimum hours to be worked by regular part-time
employees.
The Bill makes a further changes by specifying,
for example, that only a Full Bench of the Australian Industrial
Relations Commission (AIRC) will be able to make 'exceptional
matters' orders.(3) Other provisions of the Bill are
designed to facilitate the proposed twelve month review period and
to specify that non-allowable award provisions become ineffective
by the end of the period.
This review process is modelled on the WROLA
review period (then) of eighteen months. Following the required
review of awards by the AIRC and the parties to the particular
award, any provisions found not to conform with the WROLA
prescription were required to be modified or deleted. For example,
it was common for federal awards to include 'union consultation'
clauses following an Arbitration Commission test case on
termination, change and redundancy in 1984.(4) Award
clauses addressing union consultation were not specified as
allowable under WROLA, and, in the main, such clauses have been
deleted from federal awards. A similar process can be expected to
apply to those matters prescribed as non-allowable under this
Bill.
The narrower scope of award provisions envisaged
by the specified award matters of section 89A, in conjunction with
WROLA's stipulated review process can be regarded as 'award
simplification'. The AIRC has produced a useful on-line Resource
Book which outlines how the variety of award clauses have been
considered under its award simplification principles.
The Government introduced the Workplace
Relations Legislation Amendment (More Jobs Better Pay) Bill 1999
(the 'More Jobs Better Pay' Bill) to the House of Representatives
on 30 June 1999 and it passed that House on 29 September. The Bill
was referred to the
Senate Committee for Employment, Workplace Relations, Small
Business and Education for inquiry on 11 August 1999. The
Committee reported on the Bill on 29 November 1999. Schedule 6 of
the 'More Jobs Better Pay' Bill proposed making all of the
following non-allowable award matters:
-
- minimum or maximum hours of work
-
- transfers between work locations
-
- transfers from one type of employment to another (eg part-time
to full-time)
-
- training and education
-
- recording of work times
-
- accident make-up pay
-
- jury service
-
- long service leave
-
- union representation for dispute settling procedures
-
- union picnic days
-
- limitations of numbers of employees of a certain types,
and
-
- tallies, although bonuses were initially to be removed as well,
but the Bill was amended to retain bonuses
-
- The schedule also introduced other amendments in addition to
the issue of allowable award matters.
As is apparent, the current Bill reintroduces
key provisions of Schedule 6 of the 'More Jobs Better Pay' Bill.
Concerns about potential effects of removing award provisions such
as long service leave and skill related career paths were presented
to the Senate Committee reviewing that Bill and reflected in its
'Minority Report'.(5)
Other legislation which has considered allowable
award matters since the 'More Jobs Better Pay' Bill, has been the
Workplace
Relations Amendment (Tallies and Picnic Days and Tallies) Bill
2000 ('Tallies and Picnic Days' Bill). Following the Senate's
rejection of the 'More Jobs Better Pay' Bill, the Government
introduced this Bill on the premise that the Senate and
particularly the Australian Democrats, might more favourably
consider provisions of 'More Jobs Better Pay' should its 18
schedules be re-introduced as separate Bills, or as the Hon. Peter
Reith put it, 'in bite-size chunks'.(6)
The purpose of the 'Tallies and Picnic Days'
Bill was to delete tallies (a form of production bonus mainly found
in meat industry awards) from allowable award matters and to have
(union) picnic days considered to be non-allowable. It also
proposed a review of all awards so that they complied with
requirements of the Bill. This amounted to a second award
simplification review. In the event, the 'Tallies and Picnic Days'
Bill was amended in the Senate so that tallies would be removed
from allowable award matters. Picnic days, where they were provided
for in certain awards, continued to be regarded as allowable and no
additional award review was authorised, other than a review of
those awards which contained tallies. (The outcome of this Bill is
discussed below).(7)
As the current Bill proposes a further
simplification of awards, it is useful to establish the progress of
the initial simplification review which was supposed to be complete
by mid 1998, but while getting close to completion, is in some
respects still underway.
The AIRC's
Annual Report 2001-02 has revealed that by the end of June
2002, the AIRC had completed the (initial) award simplification
review process in relation to 85 per cent of the 3 223 federal
awards requiring review.(8)
In the year 2001-02 the AIRC simplified 327
awards, 484 awards were under review totalling 2 739 awards that
have been simplified since 1998 which includes 1 393 awards set
aside. In September 2002, there were 2 156 current federal
awards.(9)
The AIRC Annual Report indicated that over the
last five years, applications to vary awards have decreased
significantly (to 20 per cent of their 1998 level).(10)
Amongst the factors that have influenced this trend were: a
decrease in the number of awards through award simplification, an
emerging stability in the award safety net; and the legislative
focus on agreement-making as a means of settling industrial
disputes. On the other hand, as the number of agreements has
generally increased, the AIRC has been more involved in dealing
with disputes under the dispute settling procedures in certified
agreements. The Annual Report notes that in the previous financial
year, the number of applications made to certify agreements
decreased 6 495, compared with 8 409 12 months earlier.
It is also useful to ascertain the scope of
award and agreement coverage, which is the proportion of workers
employed under awards collective or individual arrangements. As
will be shown below, there appears to be a strong
inter-relationship between the decline of the role of awards, and
the growth of certified agreements. Awards in 1990 covered 80 per
cent of those employees under a formal instrument.(11)
The Australian Bureau of Statistics in its 'method of payment'
surveys reveals a downward trend of the proportion of employees
employed under awards such that in May 2002 only 21 per cent of
employees were covered by awards without reference to another
instrument.(12) The same survey for May 2000 had shown
23.2 per cent of employees under awards. On the other hand, the
proportion of employees covered by individual agreements had grown
to 42 per cent in May 2002, (40 per cent in 2000) although it is
not made clear in these surveys to what extent awards may underpin
these agreements. The proportion under collective agreements had
increased by less than one per cent to 37 per cent.(13)
Awards thus have a declining influence as the prime determinant of
wage and employment conditions.
Research into federal awards and certified
agreements is now suggesting a relationship between the decline of
industry awards, award simplification and the recent growth of
certified agreements. David Plowman has surveyed certain data from
the 1 160 awards and 30 000 certified agreements listed on the
OSIRIS database and also
made some observations about a sample of the (then) 200 000
Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) filed with the Office of
Employment Advocate to the end of year 2000. The OSIRIS database
exclusively deals with federally registered awards and certified
agreements.
His research shows a strong connection between
the growth of certified agreements (CAs) and award simplification,
where CAs are being used to catch conditions removed from awards
under the simplification process. He makes a number of observations
about the streams of employment regulation under the federal
jurisdiction. It is now common, indeed the norm, for employees to
be regulated by both awards and certified agreements, (and even
possible for employees to be regulated by an award, a CA and an
AWA). From the review of awards in the OSIRIS database, he
concludes that 370 of 1 160 awards are general conditions awards,
many are single issue documents (e.g. the award may deal with
superannuation or long service leave) and many formerly
multi-employer awards are giving way to single employer documents.
Concerning the 30 000 or so certified agreements, he concludes that
more than 10 000 or so, have been superseded, while another 10 000
have as their main purpose the capture of matters removed from
awards under award simplification. The report notes:
Most certified agreements are post 1996
agreements. They do not seek to provide for general conditions of
employment. In the main they are supplementary agreements that take
up the award conditions that have had to be shed in the award
simplification process.
This situation has been forced on employers and
employees by the "simplification" requirements of the WR Act that
reduce the content of awards to 20 "allowable matters".
Most certified agreements continue to complement
awards Our analysis suggests that the process of award
simplification has given rise to a plethora of certified agreements
in excess of 10,000 (30,000 listed on OSIRIS, 60% of these are
superseded). This figure compares with the approximately 700
certified agreements in 1994.(14)
Related to the apparent increase of certified
agreements and the reduction of allowable matters of federal awards
is the so-called 'No Disadvantage Test'. Under the WR Act the key
provision prescribing the relationship between federal awards and
certified agreements is the No Disadvantage Test provided under
Part VIE of the Act. Section 170XA prescribes:
(1) An agreement passes the no-disadvantage test
if it does not disadvantage employees in relation to their terms
and conditions of employment.
(2) Subject to sections 170XB, 170XC and 170XD,
an agreement disadvantages employees in relation to their terms and
conditions of employment only if its approval or certification
would result, on balance, in a reduction in the overall terms and
conditions of employment of those employees under:
(a) relevant awards or designated awards;
and
(b) any law of the Commonwealth, or of a State
or Territory, that the Employment Advocate or the Commission (as
the case may be) considers relevant.
As this Bill reduces allowable matters and makes
certain award provisions non-allowable, its effect is likely to be
a lowering of the bar for certified agreements to meet the current
No Disadvantage Test because of the proposed deletion of current
allowable matters from awards.(15)
Under, Part 6 of the Coalition's 2001 workplace
relations policy
Choice and Reward in a Changing Workplace commitments were made
to maintaining the award safety net and further award
simplification:
A. Minimum wages
The Coalition is committed to maintaining a
minimum wage safety net independently made by the Australian
Industrial Relations Commission.
and,
C. Industrial awards
Minimum safety net industrial awards
independently made by the Australian Industrial Relations
Commission will be maintained and simplified.
The peak employers' association, the Australian
Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) supports further reforms to
the award system. It proposes to make it only a minimum safety net
and has proposed a 'Minimum Conditions Act'.(16) This
would set out pay and leave conditions, broadly following the lines
of Victorian minimum conditions of employment currently under Part
XV and Schedule 1A of the WR Act, which the Bracks Government is
seeking to render inoperative by new State (and complimentary
federal) legislation.(17) The ACCI is very likely
therefore to support the intent of this Bill, as it has welcomed
the simplification of awards:
Award simplification under the Workplace
Relations Act 1996 contemplated the most substantial change in
the federal award system Simplification and the amended Act more
generally have restricted in part the previous unchecked growth in
award regulation. This is a welcome development.(18)
However not all employer associations are
committed to the blueprint which this Bill proposes. This can be
gleaned this from employer comments about Schedule 6 of the 'More
Jobs Better Pay' Bill. For example, Victorian Automobile Chamber of
Commerce in 1999 argued against removing certain allowable matters
which the current Bill also proposes to remove:
Our associations have some reservations in
relation to the proposed changes to section 89A(2)(f) in relation
to the removal of long service leave from the allowable matters. We
would see that that would create administrative burdens to members,
especially where they have national businesses operating across
state borders. Removing the long service provisions from federal
awards for our members would subject these sorts of businesses to a
multiplicity of different arrangements across different states,
including different access times to long service leave and
different outcomes in relation to the amounts of leave that are
due
Choice of superannuation the removal of
reference to superannuation funds from awards may be a simple way
of dealing with choice, but certainly we would have grave concerns
if there were moves to remove the reference to ordinary time
earnings in awards because they have been set in place. The
intention of the Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act
1992 was that it not disturb existing arrangements that were
either agreed to or arbitrated through the industrial commissions
by industrial parties through the award process. We would say that
the awards and the arrangements, as they currently apply, suit the
industries as they operate.
The other issue I would like to quickly draw the
committee's attention to is 89A(2)(n), the proposal to remove
reference to notice of termination. Currently under the award there
is a requirement for an employer to provide notice and that happens
to be the same as under the federal legislation but there are also
provisions there which require employees to provide notice. To
remove any reference to notice periods under federal awards would
then remove the employees' obligations to provide similar notice to
that that employers provide.(19)
Although somewhat dated, these comments made in
1999 assist in alerting to the likely consequences of making the
changes to awards which the current Bill also contemplates and
suggest that the proposed changes may impact on administrative
arrangements of employers.
Those arguing in support of the Bill are likely
to refer to comments made by the former Prime Minister, the Hon.
Paul Keating favouring the simplifying of federal awards and
outlined in the ALP's Working Nation,(20) which
the Hon Peter Reith was fond of quoting:
It is interesting to note that the previous
Labor Government also favoured simplified awards. In a speech to
the Institute of Directors in Melbourne on 21 April 1993, Mr
Keating, when he was talking about the model of industrial
relations they were working towards, said:
The safety net would not be intended to
prescribe the actual conditions of work of most employees, but only
to catch those unable to make workplace agreements with employers.
Over time the safety net would inevitably become simpler. We would
have fewer awards, with fewer clauses.
This speech was followed by Working
Nation, which also noted that "awards will increasingly only
need to protect basic core provisions as a true safety
net".(21)
These comments reveal that the simplification of
awards and the concomitant move to enterprise bargaining has had
bi-partisan support, to some extent. Further simplification may
encourage the move from awards and into agreement-making.
Those opposing the Bill such as trade unions,
are likely to point to the WR Act's requirement to establish an
award safety net of fair minimum wages and conditions of
employment. Removal of the proposed allowable matters, and the
matters formally considered incidental to the operation of awards,
will result in employees 'falling between the cracks', potentially
losing entitlements, for example if State/Territory legislation is
not specific to cover all affected federal award employees, or,
where a particular allowable matter (eg jury service) is not
reflected in current certified agreements of some federal award
employees. Others may point to the generally high economic outcomes
and low industrial disputation achieved under the current workplace
regime(22), the extensive and time-consuming nature of
the award simplification process undertaken over the past five
years and the move away from awards as the principal form of wages
instrument. The logic of fragmenting entitlement prescriptions in
order to force people to bargain may be questioned when the data
reveals a core of 1.7 million wage earners dependent on award
provisions.
The ALP opposed Schedule 6 of the 'More Jobs
Better Pay' Bill, as did the Australian Democrats. As noted above,
when the Workplace
Relations Amendment (Tallies and Picnic Days and Tallies) Bill
2000 was considered in the Senate, the ALP opposed the Bill,
while the Democrats agreed to the removal of tallies from the
allowable award matters, while opposing picnic days being made
non-allowable. The ALP supported certain Democrat amendments. The
Democrat amendments were proposed on the basis that the AIRC had
signalled a three year sunset arrangement for the removal of
tallies from meat industry awards under the award simplification
process. Consequently the Government agreed with Senate amendments
and the Bill was amended to remove its reference to picnic days,
thus the Bill only deleted tallies from allowable
matters.(23) The Bill was passed as the
Workplace Relations Amendment (Tallies) Act 2001.
However with the current Bill, none of the
current award prescriptions proposed for discontinuance are under
any similar process of review by the AIRC through award
simplification, therefore, it is likely that both the ALP and
Democrats will oppose this Bill.
Senator Nettle released a media statement which
stated the Australian Greens would oppose a related Bill (Workplace
Relations Amendment (Protecting the Low Paid ) Bill
2003).(24) As the current Bill also affects the content
of federal awards, it is likely that the Greens may oppose this
Bill.
Certain concerns of the business sector and
other groups at the prospect of removing key federal award
provisions such as long service leave, on the basis that such
matters may otherwise be determined by State laws (and awards) have
been noted above. The proposed changes to awards facilitated by
this Bill introduce a likelihood that former uniform prescriptions
for a particular entitlement may be open to State/Territory
determination, inviting the prospect of not only differing
prescriptions but also possibly more favourable prescriptions than
the current federal standards. This is because as the content of
federal awards is removed, federal awards will not displace
inconsistent State 'laws' under section
109 of the Constitution. Such a prospect appears in
contradiction to the thrust of certain other legislative proposals,
notably, the Workplace Relations Amendment (Termination of
Employment) Bill 2002 which seeks to displace State industrial
codes in respect of unfair dismissal so as to provide a nationally
consistent dismissal code for the corporate sector.
On the more general question as to whether the
Bill will withstand legal challenge upon its enactment, the High
Court's decision in re Pacific Coal should be referred to,
as it holds that award simplification as required by WROLA is
valid.(25) (if any)
Schedule 1 Workplace Relations
Act 1996
Item 1 deletes skilled-based
career paths from paragraph 89A(2)(a). This paragraph will only
specify classifications of employees.
Item 2 deletes piece rates from
paragraph 89A(2)(d). The paragraph will only specify
incentive-based payments and bonuses.
Item 3 repeals paragraph
89A(2)(f) - long service leave.
Item 4 deletes compassionate
and other like forms of leave from paragraph 89A(2)(g). The
paragraph will specify personal carer's leave, sick leave, family
leave, bereavement leave and compassionate leave.
Item 5 inserts into paragraph
89A(2)(g) ceremonial leave for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people, and other like forms of leave, to meet cultural
obligations under new subparagraph 89A(2)(ga).
Item 6 repeals and replaces
paragraph 89A(2)(i) (public holidays) with a
provision outlining the observance of days declared by the
Government of a State or Territory to be observed by employees who
work in the State/Territory (or region) and the entitlements to pay
in respect of those days.
Item 7 repeals and replaces
paragraph 89A(2)(j) (allowances), with a provision
setting out three kinds of monetary allowances which include
allowances for expenses incurred in employment, allowances
associated with skills or responsibilities and those in the nature
of compensating for a disability (eg confined space allowance).
Item 8 repeals and replaces
paragraph 89A(2)(m) (redundancy pay) with a more
restrictive definition of redundancy, ie where termination is on
the initiative of the employer and on the grounds of operational
requirements.
Item 9 repeals
paragraph 89A(2)(n) (notice of termination).
Item 10 repeals
paragraph 89A(2)(q) (jury service).
Item 11 inserts
paragraph 89A(2)(sa) creating the allowable matter
of bonuses for outworkers.
Item 12 removes bonuses for
outworkers from the allowable matter which prescribes pay and
conditions of outworkers (paragraph 89A(2)(t)).
Item 13 ensures that while the
AIRC can only make a minimum rates award under subsection 89A(3),
such an award will provide only for 'basic minimum
entitlements'.
Item 14 inserts new
subsection 89A(3A) Matters that are not allowable award
matters. The following matters are not to be considered as
allowable matters:
-
- transfers between locations;
- training or education (except in relation to leave and
allowances for trainees or apprentices);
- recording of the hours employees work, or the times arrival or
departure from work;
- payments of accident make up pay by employers;
- rights of an organisation of employers or employees to
participate in, or represent, the employer or employee in the whole
or part of a dispute settling procedure, unless the organisation is
the representative of the employer s or employee s choice;
- transfers from one type of employment to another type of
employment;
- the number or proportion of employees that an employer may
employ in a particular type of employment or in a particular
classification;
- prohibitions (directly or indirectly) on an employer employing
employees in a particular type of employment or in a particular
classification; and
- the maximum or minimum hours of work for regular part-time
employees.
Item 15 repeals
subsection 89A(4) (Limitations on Commission's
powers) as these matters are addressed in the proposed subsection
89A(3A).
Item 17 amends subsection
89A(6) allowing the AIRC to include a matter incidental to the
award only where the matter is essential for the purpose of making
a particular provision operate in a practical way.
Item 21 amends subsection
120A(4) with the purpose of ensuring that all exceptional matter
orders are to be made by a Full Bench of the AIRC, including a
proposed order applying to a single business.
Item 22 provides that the
amendments prescribed under Part 1 apply to industrial disputes
being dealt with by the AIRC including those which commenced before
the commencement of Schedule 1.
Item 23 prescribes a
transitional provision review of awards:
Within 12 months the AIRC must review all awards
and make variations to ensure consistency with the amended section
89A. All award provisions that are inconsistent as a matter of law
and regardless of review, cease at the end of this 12 month
period.
The Bill re-introduces provisions as previously
introduced by the primary provisions Schedule 6 of the Workplace
Relations Legislation Amendment (More Jobs Better Pay) Bill 1999
with slight variation. The debate over the provisions of the Bill
is likely to include whether awards or certified agreements form
the centrepiece of employment regulation, as well as the
relationship of CAs to awards through the 'no disadvantage test'
with the imputation that future certified agreements are likely to
be required to meet a weakened statutory test prior to their
certification. The Bill also raises prospects of the States being
able to prescribe higher (or indeed lower) entitlements than
current federal standards in respect of the matters removed from
federal awards.
-
- The Hon. Tony Abbott MP, Workplace Relations Amendment (Award
Simplification) Bill 2002
Second Reading Speech, Parliamentary Debates, House of
Representatives, 13 November 2002, p. 8855.
- See Items 49 and 51 of Schedule 5 of WROLA.
- An exceptional matter is when in certain circumstances, the
AIRC includes provisions in an award, a matter or wage rate not
sanctioned under section 89A of the WR Act.
- Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission:
Termination, Change and Redundancy case (1984) 8 IR 34;
1984 AILR 256, Termination, Change and Redundancy case,
Supplementary Decision (1984) 9 IR 115; 1985 AILR 1.
- Senate Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and
Education Legislation Committee, Consideration of the
Provisions of the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (More
Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 1999, pp. 203 224.
- The Hon. Peter Reith, 'Transcript of the Hon Peter Reith MP',
Parlinfo, 6 June 2000.
- See
Workplace Relations Amendment (Tallies) Act
2001.
- AIRC, Annual Report 2001-02, p. 19.
- Workplace Relations Amendment (Award Simplification) Bill 2002
Explanatory Memorandum, p. 5.
- AIRC, Annual Report 2001-02 p. 7.
- ABS , Award Coverage Survey, Cat. No. 6315.0, 1990.
- ABS Employee Earnings and Hours, Cat. No.6305 May 2002
(December 2002).
- ABS Cat. No. 6305, May 2000 (December 2000).
- David Plowman et al, 'Awards, certified agreements and AWAs:
some reflections', ACIRRT Working Paper No.75, April 2002,
p. 11.
- See also John Lewer and Peter Waring, 'The No Disadvantage Test
failing workers', Labour and Industry, V.12(10) August
2001.
- ACCI, Modern Workplace: Modern Future A Blueprint for the
Australian Workplace Relations System 2002-2010, p. 24.
- See 'Abbott to accept Hulls Schedule 1A referral'
WorkplaceInfo, 28 February 2003.
- ACCI, Modern Workplace:
Modern Future A Blueprint for the Australian Workplace Relations
System 2002-2010, p. 53.
- Mr G. Hatton, Director, Industrial Relations and Training,
Motor Traders Association of New South Wales, evidence to the
Employment, Workplace Relations, Small Business and Education
Legislation Committee re the Workplace Relations Legislation
Amendment (More Jobs, Better Pay) Bill 1999, 7 October 1999.
- The Hon. Paul Keating, Working Nation: Policies and
Programs, June 1994, p. 33-34.
- Quote by the Hon. Peter Reith in Address to the Centre For
Independent Studies: Impediments To Prosperity Labour Market
Reform And Beyond, 22 July 1999.
- See for example Gerard Henderson, 'Getting it right on the
economy' The Age, 11 March 2003.
- The Hon. Tony Abbott moved that the Senate amendments to the
Workplace Relations Amendment (Tallies and Picnic Days) Bill 2000
be accepted by the House of Representatives on 7 March 2001,
Debates, p. 1859.
- Senator Kerry Nettle, 'Government determined to punish low paid
workers' media release, 13 February 2003.
- Re Pacific Coal Pty Ltd & Ors; Ex Parte Construction,
Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (2000) HCA 34, 15 June
2000.
Steve O'Neill
20 March 2003
Bills Digest Service
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