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Nationals promo
The Senate Standing Committee on Industry, Innovation, Science and Resources issued a report last week titled: Keep it in the Regions. The National Party-dominated committee focused on FIFO in regional Australia, particularly in NSW and Qld, though WA got a brief mention. The thrust of the report was to reduce FIFO, make miners rejuvenate regional towns, buy local, pay local businesses quicker, employ local and not use labour hire in regional mines. In short, the National Party promoted its regional credentials in the run up the 2019 federal election.
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Non-conforming products
The Senate Economic Reference Committee last week issued its third and final report on non-conforming building products. The committee accepted the need to strengthen obligations on suppliers and importers of overseas building products emphasising the need to look at high risk products but failed to identify what high risk products are. The committee urged the Council of Australian Governments and Building Ministers Forum to deal with the issue as a priority.
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Employee changes
The Federal Government is moving quickly to introduce regulations in the FWAct to prevent the double dip of long-term casual employees being eligible to claim annual leave following a controversial Federal Court decision earlier this year. Last week, the parliament passed changes to the FWAct ending the tortuous four-year Modern Award Review process, to the relief of all major stakeholders. In addition, some much-needed tweaking of EBA approval applications was passed.
