Showing posts with label unions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unions. Show all posts

Thursday 20 April 2017

On the Australian Waterfront Everything Old Is New Again In 2017


Chris Corrigan has returned to his old stomping ground.

Swap April 2017 for April 1998, Malcolm Turnbull for John Howard, Sally McManus for Greg Combet and Paddy Crumlin for John Coombs and what have you got?

Perhaps the start of a replay of the Patrick Corporation Pty Ltd versus Maritime Union of Australia waterfront dispute, in which then Patrick managing director Chris Corrigan and his Liberal-Nationals political allies attempted to kill off the union representing dock and maritime workers at ports around Australia.  

The Sydney Morning Herald, November 2016:

Legendary waterfront warrior Chris Corrigan has announced he will stand down as chairman of logistics giant Qube, just months after the company completed the takeover of Asciano's Patrick's container ports business.

Coal industry veteran and long-time Qube director Allan Davies will be appointed chairman after a transitional program that is expected to be completed by around June 2017.

"I could not be more proud of the achievements of the Qube management team and it has been an enormous privilege to be part of the progress of this business," Mr Corrigan told Qube's annual general meeting in Sydney on Thursday.

Mr Corrigan, who has chaired Qube since early 2011 and is a former managing director of Patrick's, said he will continue as a director of the ports group "for a more extended period" to help oversee its integration following the acquisition from Asciano.

ACTU letter to Patrick Stevedores, 11 April 2017:



BACKGROUND

1. The Maritime Workers Union of Australia (the Union) and employees of companies in the Patricks group of companies (Patricks) who are members of the Union have brought proceedings in the Federal Court alleging that Patricks and others have acted unlawfully by taking steps to replace the employees with non-Union workers.
2. An urgent situation arose on 6 April 1998, when the Union and the employees believed that Patricks were about to dismiss the entire workforce over Easter.
3. The Union and the employees applied to the Court immediately on 6 April 1998 and asked for temporary orders to keep the employees in work until the main application is heard by the Court. The Court listed that urgent matter for hearing on 8 April 1998.
4. The following night, on 7 April 1998, the Patrick companies which employed the employees (the Patrick employers) appointed administrators to companies on the ground that they were insolvent.
5. Part of the cause of the insolvency was that other Patrick companies which owned the stevedoring operation (the Patrick owners) cancelled a contract for the supply of labour by the Patrick employers to the Patrick owners. That contract was the way the Patrick employers obtained stevedoring work to employ the employees.
6. On the same night, the Patrick owners engaged contractors to provide a new workforce. Under these contracts, the Patrick owners committed themselves to substantial financial obligations……
12. The cancellation of the labour supply contract and the appointment of administrators on 7 April 1998 were made possible by a complex inter-company transaction which occurred in September 1997. By dividing the functions of employing workers and owning the business between two companies, the Patrick group put in place a structure which made it easier to dismiss the whole workforce. It is arguable, on the evidence, that this was done because the employees were members of the Union. So there is an arguable case that the Patrick employers acted in breach of s 298K(1) of the Act.
13. There is also an arguable case that these acts amounted to a breach of the employees' contracts of employment.
14. There is also evidence that the Patrick owners and other companies in the Patrick group, together with others, agreed on these unlawful acts as part of an overall plan to replace the workforce with non-Union labour. This means that there is an arguable case that the Patrick owners and Patrick employers have engaged in an unlawful conspiracy.

Patricks conducted the business of stevedoring at 17 facilities around Australia. In particular, four companies in the Patricks group ("the employers”) employed the applicant employees, approximately 1,400 in number, and who were members of the MUA, to carry on the stevedoring business. The employees believed that the employers intended to dismiss their unionised workforce and replace it with non-union labour. This concern was fueled by the fact that, in January 1998, the Patricks group transferred the right to use No 5 Webb Dock in Victoria for stevedoring operations, together with cranes and equipment, to companies associated with the National Farmers Federation (NFF). The MUA employees believed that Patricks had some involvement with the NFF companies, and that the transfer of No 5 Webb Dock was part of a plan by Patricks to train an alternative workforce with which to replace the union employees.
In response, the employees filed an application on 11 February 1998, in which they alleged that the transfer of No 5 Webb Dock was part of a wrongful plan to replace the MUA employees with a non-union workforce. However, matters escalated considerably just before Easter when the employees learned that Patricks intended to dismiss the whole workforce during the Easter period. Then, on 7 April 1998, Patricks announced that it had entered into contracts "for a range of services from nine separate companies including the ... NFF backed P&C Stevedoring ..." and that Patricks had "taken steps to ensure all displaced employees ... will be eligible to receive their full leave and redundancy entitlements.
"On the evening of the 7'h of April, each of the four Patrick employer companies appointed administrators under Pt 5.3A of the Corporations Law. The court was told on 8 April that the administrators intended to dismiss the employees because the employers were insolvent. An interim injunction to restrain the employers from doing so was granted by His Honour North J on 8 April 1998, to have effect until the first hearing day after Easter, that was 15 April 1998. It is this latter hearing, and the subsequent appeals from the decision, which is the subject of this case note.
The employees sought injunctive orders which, in general terms, sought to prevent the employers, until the trial of the action, from dismissing the employees, and which required Patricks to utilise the MUA employees and no others in operating its stevedoring business. The court was also asked to restrain the employers from acting on or giving effect to the purported termination of certain labour supply agreements between the employers and another company in the Croup, Patrick Stevedores ESD Pty Ltd. That purported termination, which occurred on the evening of 7 April 1998, armed the Patricks employers with the power to claim that the MUA workforce was redundant.'' In other words, the purported termination left the employers with no work for their workforces to perform."…..
The injunctive orders granted by North J and upheld on appeal essentially had the effect of requiring Patricks as employers to retain their workforce, and compelled Patrick Stevedores Operations Pty Ltd to use that workforce for any stevedoring work. The orders amounted to the specific performance of the labour supply agreements, and required that the pre-7 April situation, whereby the Patrick operators had employed as their labour force members of the MUA, be maintained. The employees were protected against the imminent termination of their employment….
…the High Court was prepared to uphold the orders made by North J, in light of the undertakings given, on the basis that the administrators had to retain their discretion as to whether the employer companies ought to continue trading, or cease trading, and whether or not it would be feasible to retain the whole workforce. Decisions of that kind were for the administrators to make, not the court. However, if the administrators decided to continue trading, the effect was to restore the pre-7 April employment situation.

The sacked unionised Patricks workforce was finally reinstated in May 1998.


As Chairman and major shareholder in Qube Holdings Ltd Corrigan oversaw the purchase of Patricks in 2016.

Friday 7 April 2017

News Corp has egg on its face



So the newspaper has no excuse for such inaccurate reporting prominently displayed as an “Exclusive” on its 29 March 2017 front page.

The Guardian, 30 March 2017:

The Australian newspaper has claimed that the union leader Sally McManus faked her CV when she said she was president of a university union for two years.

The story, headlined “Mystery of union chief’s uni claim”, said the ACTU secretary was “not elected to the student union council in any elections in 1991, 1992, 1993 or 1994”.

But her Macquarie University deputy student leader at the time and McManus herself have demolished the story, saying it was lacking in research and was the result of a mix-up between the student union and the student council.

Mark Greenhill, now the mayor of Blue Mountains council, said McManus was president of the Macquarie University student union. “I should know, I was her vice-president,” Greenhill said.
“Anyone aware of politics on Australian campuses in the 1990s would be aware, there was a separation between representative service and political bodies.

“A separate body, the Macquarie University student council, was the political body.”

The Australian’s associate editor, Brad Norington, who has written a series of articles critical of McManus, implied in an “exclusive” story that McManus had faked her experience on her professional profile on LinkedIn.

“The claim by ACTU secretary Sally McManus that she headed the student union at Macquarie University for more than two years is in dispute, with no records showing she ever held the post,” he wrote on the front page of the Australian.

“On her LinkedIn ‘experience’ profile, Ms McManus says she was president of the student union at North Ryde, in Sydney’s northwest, from August 1991 to August 1993, for ‘2yrs 1 mo’.”

The story was promoted by the Australian’s associate editor, Caroline Overington, on Twitter before an address by McManus at the National Press Club…..

The Australian addressed the error by publishing a second story on Wednesday afternoon with the headline “Sally McManus clarifies Macquarie Uni student union past”. The original story is still online.

Thursday 23 March 2017

Before anyone starts yelling about those big bad unions, take a look at these workplace fatality statistics


The following figures represent someone’s mother or father, son or daughter, brother or sister, niece or nephew, aunt or uncle, grandparent or friend.

The numbers also make clear that, averaged out, three people were killed each week in a workplace accident between 1 January and 14 March 2017.

This is no blip in workplace fatality statistics – averaged out four workers died each week of the year in 2015 and three workers each week in 2016.


Worker fatalities

As at 14 March, 32 Australian workers have been killed at work in 2017.

The number of worker deaths listed on this page is based on initial media reports and is a preliminary estimate of the number of people killed while working. Once the appropriate authority has investigated the death, more accurate information becomes available from which Safe Work Australia updates details of the incident.
Updated information is used to publish Safe Work Australia’s annual Work-related Traumatic Injury Fatalities report which includes finalised work-related fatalities from 2003 onwards.

Year-to-date 2017: Preliminary worker deaths by industry of workplacea
a Ranked in descending order, and then on alphabetical order for industries with no fatalities.
b Mining fatalities include fatalities that occur in the coal mining, oil and gas extraction, metal ore mining, gravel and sand quarrying, and services to mining sectors.
c Includes notifiable fatalities that occurred overseas.
Safe Work Australia also collects and reports on a range of other work health and safety and workers compensation statistics.

These figures are still too high. 

However if it wasn’t for the efforts of unions from the 1830s onwards to have wages, hours worked, sick leave, annual leave and workplace safety included in Australian industrial law, workplace fatalities would be much higher in this country today.

Thursday 22 September 2016

Looking back on the Abbott-Heydon politically motivated fizzer


Professor John Quiggin writing at johnquiggin.com, 10 September 2016:

When Dyson Heydon delivered the report of the Royal Commissioner into Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption, he claimed that his findings represented “the tip of the iceberg”. At the time, I commented that, given nearly $50 million of public money and lengthy hearings with the exceptional powers of a Royal Commission, the Australian public was entitled to expect the whole iceberg.

It turns out that I was too charitable. In the months since the Commission reported, a string of the charges he recommended have been thrown out or withdrawn In fact, six months later, there has only been one conviction, resulting in a suspended sentence. The only big fish to be caught since the establishment of Heydon’s star chamber has been the Commission’s own star witness, Kathy Jackson.

And the bills keep coming in. The last budget allocated $6 million more for the AFP-Victorian Police taskforce, which currently has outstanding cases against a grand total of six unionists. By contrast, taskforce Argo in Queensland, focused on child exploitation, has a budget of $3 million.

For another contrast, here are a few of the cases of alleged wage fraud, misappropriation of worker entitlements and so on that have emerged since Heydon’s Commission was launched: 7-11 ( million underpayment), Queensland NickelPizza HutMyers and Spotless, and lots of small employers in the agricultural sector. That’s on top of the general run of sharp practiceenvironmental vandalism, market rigging, and dubious practices of all kinds.

It would be absurd to deny the existence of corrupt union officials and, though it is much rarer, systemic corruption, as in the case of the Health Services Union. But the continued failure of a massively expensive, politically motivated inquisition to turn up more than a handful of cases suggests that the problems are isolated, and that the real drive is to attack unions for doing the job of representing workers.

Thursday 19 May 2016

Australian Federal Police and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) in 2016


The Australian Federal Police (AFP) are not covering themselves with glory in relation to one Australian union.......

This article in The Guardian on 16 April 2016 appears to indicate that, in subsequent interactions with Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), the Australian Federal Police did not forget that the union had successfully defended itself in court in 2015:

A complaint from the construction union to the commonwealth ombudsman paints an extraordinary picture of heavy-handed tactics by special police taskforces, including a police officer allegedly warning one unionist he knew his children’s names and what time he dropped them off to school.

The letter, sent by the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) on Tuesday, complains that police repeatedly attempted to question witnesses without their lawyers present and, in one case, demanded a junior employee grant access to union headquarters during a raid without first showing her a warrant.

The union’s complaint alleges that when the Australian federal police searched the ACT branch’s headquarters on 25 August, one officer told the branch secretary Dean Hall, “I do know about your family things”, to explain how he knew his wife’s name.

“Like, I know your kids’ names and their ages and where they go to school and when you drop them off,” the officer is said to have told Hall. “What do you expect? I am profiling you.”

The union’s lawyer, Phillip Pasfield, told the ombudsman these alleged statements were intimidatory, unwarranted and designed to threaten Hall, who was “extremely upset” about the incident.

In December the Australian Capital Territory supreme court ruled that the raid was unlawful because police withheld information from the magistrate in order to get the warrant.

The CFMEU complained that the officer in charge of the raid told building industry participants that he would prefer to make workplace agreements with the Master Builders Association, not the CFMEU…..

The union claimed the AFP deliberately misled a Fairfax Media journalist by saying a CFMEU official had been “raided” on 2 December then changed its story to say the raid related to the official but was not a raid on his or her property. This was done to “destroy the reputation of the official involved”, it said.

In another incident, the CFMEU said the union police taskforce provided false information or failed to correct journalist Stephen Drill, who incorrectly reported Victoria police’s union taskforce Heracles had raided the CFMEU’s Victorian headquarters…..

While this report in The Guardian on 9 May 2016 raises serious concerns about the conduct of the federal police:
Union officials have launched an extraordinary attack on the Australian Federal Police, accusing the force of adopting an "unbalanced and aggressive" approach to union activities and executing the Turnbull government's union-busting ambitions.
Sparking a flare-up of simmering tensions this week, a Victorian union safety officer has become the subject of a criminal investigation after he tested the stability of a guard rail during a site visit and it immediately collapsed.
A letter from the AFP, seen by Fairfax Media, details the allegation of property damage against the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union's Peter Clarke. 
The union said the case was "bizarre" and added to serious concerns that police were responding to political pressure to become more heavily involved in industrial relations matters.
"This is a bizarre use of AFP resources that ought to be used to deal with the serious criminality that goes on in the community," union secretary Dave Noonan said.
"It's clear to us that senior officers of the Australian Federal Police are directing some kind of campaign against the union and its officials."
The case is the latest example of what the CFMEU claims is unjust, heavy-handed treatment of its members and officials in Victoria, the ACT and Queensland by the federal police. Slater & Gordon, the union's legal firm, has filed a formal complaint against the AFP with the Commonwealth Ombudsman.
Video footage of the alleged property damage incident shows Mr Clarke – a safety officer with the union's Victorian branch – approaching the guard rail during a safety inspection at a Canberra construction site in February. It appears to show him momentarily shaking the railing before a large section collapses.
Mr Clarke has been called in for interrogation over the incident.
"During the course of the investigation, Mr Clarke was identified as being responsible for damaging a guard rail at that location," AFP acting Commander Robert Wilson said in the letter.
"The allegation against Mr Clarke is property damage ... Police wish to speak to Mr Clarke in relation to the matter in the form of a record of interview."
The union said falls from heights were a leading cause of workplace injury and death, and every safety official was expected to check the stability of guard rails during site inspections. Statistics from Safe Work Australia shows the nation's construction industry accounts for almost 40 per cent of fall-related deaths.
"The fact that this rail was so flimsy it didn't survive a light shake shows it would have been completely ineffective in preventing a fall, and completely fails to comply with the relevant codes of practices," Mr Noonan said.
"Are our priorities saving workers on construction sites from getting killed, or trying to cover up for builders who cut corners on occupational health and safety and put workers' lives at risk?"
The Australian Federal Police said the investigation was ongoing and it would not be appropriate to comment.

CFMEU video footage of the alleged property damage:

The Guardian, 5 May 2016:

In separate proceedings, union official and rugby league great John Lomax will appear in the ACT Supreme Court on Friday against the AFP.

Mr Lomax was investigated and prosecuted for blackmail last year, with police alleging he attempted to force a Canberra painting company and its principal to sign a union enterprise bargaining agreement.

The prosecution was dropped in October. 

Now Mr Lomax is considering a malicious prosecution lawsuit. 

He and his lawyers declined to comment ahead of Friday's court appearance.

But CFMEU national construction secretary Dave Noonan, Mr Lomax's employer, said the former Canberra Raiders hardman's lawyers had been forced to seek a court order to access information about the investigation after requests to the federal police failed.

"The solicitors [who act for Mr Lomax] have sought various documents to ascertain whether or not our concern that there was a malicious element to the prosecution can be sustained," Mr Noonan said.

"Those documents have not been supplied.

"As the documents were not produced it's necessary to make an application in court for pre-trial discovery."

Mr Noonan said the contents of the documents would determine whether Mr Lomax would launch a malicious prosecution suit against the federal police.

"[Mr Lomax] was charged on a completely bogus charge, our QC said so at the time, they proceeded with the charge, they failed to provide any evidence to the court and the charges were dropped.

"If the AFP has got nothing to hide, why not provide the documents? If they acted in good faith, why not provide the documents?

"We think the proper thing for the AFP to do is to produce the documents."


ABC News reporting on the ACT arm of the Australian Federal Police on 22 March 2016:

A former staffer at the centre of an investigation into the office of Labor MLA Joy Burch has hit out at ACT police after it was announced the inquiry had been dropped.

Last year, allegations arose that Ms Burch's chief of staff, Maria Hawthorne, leaked sensitive details of conversations between the ACT Government and the chief of police about the conduct of officers on construction sites in Canberra, to the Construction, Forestry, Mining, Energy Union (CFMEU).

ACT Policing has announced no criminal charges would be laid but revealed that allegations also involved another former staff member.

Ms Hawthorne dismissed the allegations against her and other staff.

"ACT Policing's last-ditch attempt to implicate a second staff member should be seen for what it is – a desperate act of distraction," she said.

"The truly unprecedented event of the past three months has been an elected minister losing her job because of unfounded allegations by an unelected official."

BRIEF BACKGROUND

In this ACT Supreme Court judgment, Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union v Commissioner, Australian Federal Police [2015] ACTSC 362 (2 December 2015), the Australian Federal Police are found to have abused process:

140. The fact that a second or subsequent warrant might be an abuse of process does not go to the question of the validity of any such warrant, but only if it is shown that the second warrant is actually issued for an ulterior or improper purpose or otherwise constitutes an abuse of process.


141. In my view, it could not be said, in this case, that the issue of the second warrant was an abuse of process. No prejudice to the plaintiff was identified that was outside the contemplation of the construction of the relevant provisions.

Relief

266. As I have found the seizure under the second warrant to be invalid because of the failure to disclose fully the circumstances that were required to be disclosed for the issuing officer, the learned Magistrate, to make a proper decision about whether to issue a warrant that is able to be executed after 9.00 pm, I have not found that any of the other complaints invalidated the search or the warrants.

267. In relation to the material obtained under that warrant, the material must be returned or destroyed.

268. In relation to the breaches that I have found, I have been asked to make declarations of non-compliance with the relevant sections.
269. The question of whether I had power to make declarations was not subject to any challenge by the first defendant, other than as to discretion. This is not a case such as Kennedy v Baker where such an issue arose. There is, in this Court, plenary power to make such declarations and I do not need to consider the jurisdiction further.

270. As to discretion, the only basis on which it was urged that I should not make any declaration is that a failure to do so would still leave a court, which was required to deal with any criminal proceedings on which any seized material is sought to be admitted, and which retained jurisdiction under s 138 of the Evidence Act, to deal with any impropriety or illegality then.

271. I accept that a court will be appropriately able to protect an accused’s interests in any such criminal proceeding by such means; see Phong v Attorney-General for the Commonwealth [2001] FCA 1241; (2001) 114 FCR 75. It seems to me, however, inappropriate to deprive such a court of my findings following what was a detailed hearing with not only affidavit evidence but cross-examination and oral submissions.

272. In the circumstances, I am prepared to make the declarations.

273. It seems to me that the plaintiff has had sufficient success to justify an order for costs. I shall permit the parties to seek another order but otherwise so order.

Friday 5 February 2016

Labor called Turnbull Government's bluff - now ordinary voters should demand their right to know


When Dyson Heydon decided to permanently conceal from public view one volume of the report produced by the Royal Commission into Union Governance and Corruption, he did a grave disservice to the democratic process.

Opposition and cross-bench parliamentarians are starting to demand access to the secret 'facts' a commissioner (trailing apprehended bias allegations behind him) relied on, before they consider new government legislation. 

Now in this 2016 federal election year it's time that Australian voters also fight for access to a copy of this volume with individual/company/place names redacted.

It may be a hard fight as I rather suspect that Heydon's hidden hyperbole won't stand up to close public scrutiny.

The Australian, 18 January 2016:

Labor has written to the Turnbull government to formally request access to the secret volumes of the Heydon royal commission report on trade unions, as it accused the Coalition of selectively using the inquiry’s recommendations for its “immediate political interests”.
In a letter to Employment Minister Michaelia Cash, obtained by The Australian, opposition employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor says the government must provide access to all sides of parliament — “and potentially to other interested parties” — if it seeks to use the chapters “to make the case for legislation”.
It comes after The Weekend Australian revealed the government would take the extraordinary step of providing crossbench senators with redacted versions of the confidential volumes in a desperate bid to end the stalemate with the independents over its industrial relations reforms.
The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is arranging a viewing of the secret parts of the report after independents Jacqui Lambie and Glenn Lazarus demanded to see the full document before deciding on the government’s stalled IR bills.
“If your government wants to rely on these secret volumes to make the case for legislation, the opposition is of the strong belief that the government must, at a minimum, provide them to all sides of the parliament, and potentially to other interested parties,” Mr O’Connor writes……
Royal commissioner Dyson Heydon has recommended a volume of the interim report be kept confidential to protect the physical wellbeing of 29 witnesses and their families. He has also urged for a sixth volume in the final report to remain confidential.
Mr O’Connor, who has slammed the royal commission as a “political witch hunt”, said it appeared the government “only respects the royal commission’s findings when it suits your immediate political interests”.
“A failure to provide the opposition with an opportunity to access the confidential volumes will only confirm this,” he says.

Sunday 17 January 2016

Conservative ideologues, bankers and employers determined to have their way on wages, unions & industry not-for-profit super funds


Australian unions, the successful not-for-profit super funds they administer and enterprise agreements are all well and truly in the firing line as Australia enters the 2016 election year.

The Australian, 11 January 2016:

A new clash is looming over rules that can ban millions of workers from choosing their own retirement fund as the government tries to increase choice in the $2 trillion superannuation industry.
Despite fears it will be accused of running an “ideological” campaign against funds that are backed by unions, the Coalition will move to scrap a key part of the industrial relations regime that gives unions and employers the right to limit fund choice for up to 4.7 million workers.
The push sets up a new fight in the Senate after parliament resumes within weeks, but armed with a warning from trade union royal commissioner Dyson Heydon against the “tyranny of the majority” being allowed to dictate where workers put their retirement savings, the government will insist that the choice of fund cannot remain a bargaining chip in workplace deals.
Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer will make the issue one of four major changes to the superannuation sector this year in a reform plan that appears certain to deepen the divisions in the fund ­industry while sparking renewed objections from Labor.
Ms O’Dwyer told The Aus­tralian a government analysis indicated that 26 per cent of enterprise bargaining agreements gave workers no choice of super fund and another 5 per cent allowed only limited choice. “We think that everyone should have a choice about where their money goes — after all, it’s their superannuation, it’s their retirement,” she said. “That money should be provided to a fund of their choice.”
At stake is control of tens of billions of dollars that flow into super funds every year from employee pay packets under terms negoti­ated by unions and employers in more than 20,000 enterprise agreements that cover 40 per cent of the nation’s workforce.
The move opens a new front in attempts to overhaul the wider super system after Ms O’Dwyer last month failed to persuade crossbench sen­ators to legislate governance changes that would require all funds to appoint independent directors.
Labor and the unions have claimed the Coalition is seeking to undermine the not-for-profit industry funds set up by employer groups and unions decades ago, and which often have the advantage of being named in EBAs or as the “default” option in industrial awards……

Excerpts from Prime Minster Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, Attorney-General George Brandis and Minister for Employment Michaelia Cash, Joint Media Release - Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption Final Report, 30 December 2015:

Today the Government announces that it will re-introduce legislation to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission in the first sitting week of 2016 and will seek to have it passed by both chambers before the end of March…..

The Government will therefore introduce additional legislation to further strengthen the Registered Organisation Commission [previously rejected by the Senate].

Taskforce Heracles - the existing Federal and State Police Taskforce attached to the Royal Commission - will be funded to continue its work investigating referrals [from the Royal Commission into Union Governance & Corruption].

Seven News, 27 December 2015:

Business groups say a cut to Sunday penalty rates is now inevitable despite a potential backlash at the next federal election.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 2015:

National Pharmacies is attempting to cut pharmacists' penalty rates by as much as 50 per cent for certain hours on Saturday shifts. Double-time Sunday rates would remain in place.
The company also wants to lower overtime pay, freeze the wages of existing pharmacists and introduce a two-tiered pay scheme that would slash the wages of new employees, according to the union.
The union, Professional Pharmacists Australia, estimates the proposed cuts could trim new pharmacists' pay cheques by up to $10,000 a year…..
"The company is disappointed that enterprise agreement negotiations have failed to reach agreement,….

Liberal Party member & IPA Deputy Executive Director James Paterson appearing on Sky News on18 December 2015:

https://youtu.be/pjllmNzGoVU

As to be expected, far-right Institute of Public Affairs' propaganda deliberately forgets to mention that 87.6 per cent of public servants have a base salary which is less than $80k, as well as failing to mention that almost half of all public servants receive an employer superannuation contribution below the 15.4 per cent quoted by Paterson. See Australian Public Service Commission's 2014 remuneration survey.