Department provides visa lifeline for undocumented workers

Undocumented Asian workers pick table grapes ona farm outside of Mildura in northwest Victoria. Picture: Robert Klarich exclusive Max Maddison Journalist The Australian, February 23, 202 Five minutes from the centre of Mildura, in Victoria’s northwest, an unassuming red-brick house could easily be mistaken for the abode of the quintessential Australian family. But inside, the courtyard has been converted into …

New FWO probe as Woolworths underpayments soar $144m

Woolworths CEO Brad Banducci. Picture: John Feder Ewin Hannan WORKPLACE EDITOR @EwinHannan The Australian, February 23, 2022 The Fair Work Ombudsman will investigate Woolworths after the supermarket giant revealed underpayments to employees had jumped to $571m, the highest amount declared by a single employer during the recent years of wage theft scandals. Woolworths Group chief executive Brad Banducci apologised to …

A small step towards tax fairness for small business, but not enough

ROBERT GOTTLIEBSEN Australian dollar banknotes with wooden cubes and calculatorThe Australian, February 20, 2022 The Coalition government has taken a small but important step on the long road to introducing fairness to small business taxation collection in Australia. The Australian Taxation Office appears dedicated to maintaining the current unfair collection system and last month snuck into parliament a draft bill …

Wageline News, 18 February 2022

Easter Sunday is now a public holiday in WA  The Public and Bank Holidays Act 1972, which specifies public holidays for WA, was amended by the Industrial Relations Legislation Amendment Act 2021 (IRLA Act) to make Easter Sunday a public holiday. The Easter Sunday provisions in the IRLA Act commenced on 12 February 2022. For employers and employees in the …

Fair Work upholds ACTU sacking of worker over Facebook posts

Police try to stop protesters on day four of a construction industry and ant —vaccination protest in Melbourne in September, 2021. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Crosling Ewin Hannan WORKPLACE EDITOR The Australian, February 18, 2022 The Fair Work Commission has upheld the ACTU’s sacking of a call centre worker over a series of personal Facebook posts that supported anti-vaccine …

Flood of WA women looking for work drives small increase in unemployment rate

Josh ZimmermanThe West Australian, 17 February 2022 The Australian unemployment rate has held steady at 4.2 per cent. Credit: BIANCA DE MARCHI/AAPIMAGE WA’s unemployment rate increased slightly to 3.7 per cent in January after nearly 14,000 women re-entered the labour force, propelling the State’s participation rate to its highest mark in nearly a decade. Just under 9000 jobs were created …

Busselton to mark Wardandi Wonnerup Massacre anniversary with a truth-telling march

Taylar AmoniniBusselton Dunsborough Times/The West Australian, 18 February 2022 5:31AM Wardandi elder Bill Webb with artefacts from the Wonnerup Massacre. Credit: Taylar Amonini/Busselton-DunsboroughTimes Busselton’s Wardandi people will march down the town’s main street in a truth-telling mission, following an expose on the bloody history of the Capes. Last week The Times lifted the lid on Busselton’s Wonnerup Massacre in 1841 …

Skills shortage will take ‘years’ to fix

Consultant Aiden Heke AIDEN HEKE The Australian, February 11, 2022 Omicron has led to nationwide staff shortages, and linking these shortages to this specific variant may lead us to believe this may be a short-term issue. But the data shows we should expect staff shortages for a long time yet. The data shows that in 2019 Australia had 249,600 skilled …

Bosses want budget boost for migrant workers ‘catch-up’

Business Council of Australia chief executive Jennifer Westacott. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage Geoff Chambers Chief Political Correspondent The Australian, February 17, 2022 Australia’s biggest employers want to increase the annual permanent migration program to 220,000 people to plug skilled worker shortages, arguing the higher intake will not “depress local jobs or wages”. The Business Council of Australia, representing …

This is not the time to end apprentice and trainee wage subsidies

Troy Williams Troy Williams, CEO of the Independent Tertiary Education Council of Australia. Photo: David GeraghtyThe Australian, February 17, 2022 As the nation grapples with a growing skills shortage, it’s great to see a significant increase in the number of people undertaking apprenticeships and traineeships. This has largely been driven by a sizeable Australian government investment in wage support through …