Issues & Policy

e-print e-mail

Other activities in 2006

The NSW Government took a number of actions in response to the previous federal government's industrial relations agenda including:

·         Shielding 186,000 public sector workers including frontline workers like nurses, ambulance officers, TAFE teachers and bus drivers from federal laws through the creation of the Public Sector Employment Legislation Amendment Act 2006.

·         Protecting the employment conditions of young workers aged under 18 years through the Industrial Relations (Child Employment) Act 2006 No 96 ensuring that young workers conditions cannot fall below NSW award and legislative standards. 

·         Amending the NSW Industrial Relations Act 1996 No 17 to ensure that injured workers can return to their job; protect workers who raise legitimate occupational health and safety concerns in the workplace; safeguarded clothing outworkers rights and entitlements; facilitate common law contractual agreements allowing industrial parties to freely agree on terms and conditions of employment without fear of prohibited content restrictions; strengthen the powers of the Industrial Relations Commission to hear industrial cases of national importance; and provide alternate dispute resolution services to parties to federal workplace agreements.

·         Introducing a new procurement policy that requires NSW Government contractors and sub-contractors to ensure workers receive no less than the relevant NSW award and legislative standards backed up by a strong auditing role undertaken by the Office of Industrial Relations.

·         Securing NSW local government workers annual leave and long service leave entitlements through the making of the Local Government (General) Amendment (Transfer of Accrued Leave Entitlements) Regulation 2006.

·         Establishing a Parliamentary Inquiry which reported on 23 November 2006 finding that the Work Choices legislation should be repealed and failing that, the New South Wales Government should act to minimise the impact of the legislation.

·         Opposing the previous federal government's Independent Contractors Act 2006 which takes away rights that independent contractors formerly enjoyed under State law. See Recent NSW Government Submissions on industrial relations related matters.

·         Developing the Compare What's Fair tool assisting thousands of workers to assess the terms of an individual agreement against the fair and reasonable standards of the relevant state award.

·         Intervening in the NSW Family Provisions Test Case to ensure that improved parental and family leave standards were secured for state awards prior to the commencement of federal laws.