Stuart Ramsey ordered to compensate sacked workers

It has been a long time coming for those eleven South Grafton abattoir workers sacked in November 2008, but yesterday in Fair Work Ombudsman v Ramsey Food Processing Pty Ltd and Stuart Ramsey (19 October 2011) the Federal Court of Australia found in the workers favour and ordered compensation for termination without notice, severance pay or annual leave entitlements.

Full transcript of the judgment here.

Update:

The Daily Examiner today offers this summation:

In effect, the court found Mr Ramsey and his company Ramsey Food Processing established shelf labour-hire companies and used them as a mechanism to hire and fire who he wanted, while avoiding paying entitlements.
It found that when the company wanted to get rid of employees without paying entitlements, it moved the employees it wanted to retain into another labour hire company then starved the original company of funds. That company would then become insolvent, leaving neither money to pay the employees nor money to which they were rightly entitled.
That is what the workers claimed when they were sacked and their claims have now been vindicated.
It has not been a great week for Mr Ramsey. Last Thursday he was found guilty of contempt in the NSW Land and Environment Court.

Byron turned out to say no to coal seam gas mining

Photograph from Northern Rivers Guardians website

Byron Bay makes its views known on the subject of coal seam gas mining as part of the Lock The Gate /Defend Our Water National Day of Action on October 16 2011:

Photographs from Facebook and Common Ground Byron Bay

The O'Farrell Government is not listening as it endorses fraccing in its submission to the NSW Inquiry into Coal seam gas.

Best Tweet of the Week

Queensland Liberal MP Andy Laming successfully aping his leader The Rabbitt on Twitter this week:

@AndrewLamingMP Andrew Laming

@slabb0 Bad luck. My job is to annoy people just like you.

13 Oct via web

You might remember that this backbencher is the son of former Queensland state Liberal MP Bruce Laming and supposedly factional ally of Senator George Brandis.

Pic from The Age

Clarence By-election: weeping with laughter in the first week of the unofficial election campaign

When I first read the health funding claims of Nationals candidate Chris Gulaptis I was frankly sceptical, given his past record of saying any old thing to support his position.

I searched the Internet until I found a copy of the agreement between the Commonwealth and the NSW Government concerning Grafton Base Hospital.

I also hunted cyberspace for any evidence that his predecessor had ever made the same claim.

Result – Gulaptis was incorrect in claiming either the NSW Nationals or the O'Farrell Government had supplied the entire amount of this funding or that Steve Cansdell had made a statement to that effect. Nor are his assertions concerning Maclean District Hospital correct.

When the media first queried the Gulaptis claim this is what he said:

Mr Gulaptis defended the figures he quoted, claiming they were in a press release Mr Cansdell sent out before his resignation on September 16.

"The $9 million is in relation to the orthopaedic ward and imaging expansion.

So it was to the accompaniment of helpless laughter that I read this article in The Daily Examiner today, in which he ends with an outright misrepresentation of his original statements and a bald untruth about the funding process, as well as omitting to mention the fact that the Commonwealth has already begun scheduled funding payments:

Poll stoush over hospital funding  by Tim Howard

THE Nationals candidate for the Clarence by-election, Chris Gulaptis, has been caught out with claims the State Government has stumped up $9 million for Grafton Base Hospital says an opponent.

Following his preselection on Sunday, Mr Gulaptis included a figure of $9 million for Grafton Base Hospital among "hundreds of millions of dollars" the Nationals had directed toward the Valley since the March State election.

The chairman of the hospital Medical Staff Council, Allan Tyson, questioned the claim on Monday and yesterday the Country Labor candidate Peter Ellem accused Mr Gulaptis of "overstretching" with the claim.

"Mr Gulaptis, either through ignorance or incompetence, is inappropriately claiming credit for Grafton Base Hospital funding provided by the Commonwealth and former State Labor governments last year," Mr Ellem said.

"I'm calling on Mr Gulaptis to provide the budget details of his claim - where is the $9 million for Grafton Base Hospital?

"If it is the same $6 million from the Commonwealth and the $4 million announced by the former Labor State government, Mr Gulaptis should apologise for misleading the local community.

The claim has also angered Federal Member for Page Janelle Saffin, who worked hard to make sure the money came to the hospital during the 2010 Federal election campaign.

"I'm furious that someone can try and take credit for something they had nothing to do with," Ms Saffin said.

"What he's saying is wrong in fact and wrong in any sort of insinuation.

"And to attempt to blame Steve (Cansdell) left me speechless.

"I never saw any such release and I know Steve never tried to claim anything like this. He always said it was a good thing the hospital got that funding."

Mr Gulaptis defended his assertion yesterday, and upped it by $1 million.

"Over the course of the weekend I referred to the $10 million allocated to Grafton Hospital - one of many projects in the Clarence Electorate to receive funding in the 2011 State budget papers," Mr Gulaptis said in a prepared release.

"The NSW Government budget papers for the Liberal and Nationals' first State budget are clear and in black and white.

"There is a total of $10 million in COAG funding for Grafton Base Hospital, consisting of $4 million from the State Government and $6 million from the Federal Government.

"This is being delivered. It is not a promise from a former minister, nor an undertaking from a senior departmental officer but a hard-line item with funding from both the Federal and State governments to improve health infrastructure for the people of Clarence.

"Many State Labor health promises over the years were never delivered. The Nationals have actually handed down the funding for this project."

Writs for the Clarence By-election will not be issued until 28 October and candidate nominations only open on the same day. The NSW Nationals still have time to change their minds and rectify their biggest mistake this year.