Posted: 8:00 am on 16th May 2012
At long last, services on Sydney’s highly inefficient rail network are getting some attention. Transport Minister Gladys Berejiklian has announced that 750 jobs will be cut in a restructuring effort intended to reduce bureaucratic waste. Even more heartening is that RailCorp’s projected job cuts are relatively mild, consisting of voluntary redundancies to middle management, not to frontline staff who carry out the day-to-day operations on the trains. Of Sydney’s transport…
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Posted: 8:00 am on 14th May 2012
The Gillard government has reneged on its promise to reduce the corporate tax rate by 1% – a cut that was part of the package to secure the Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT). Although this backflip will surely anger the business community, there are far bigger problems affecting the bottom lines of Australian businesses. Many small business owners cite a strong dollar, growing regulatory burden, and inflexible labour laws as…
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Posted: 3:26 pm on 30th April 2012
Australia’s industrial relations system does not treat the employment contract as a simple contract between two equal agents, but as a relationship with unequal constraints and expectations. Toyota’s sacking of 350 workers last week has brought the issue of ‘unfair’ dismissals to the public sphere, but while the debate centres on the manner and basis of these dismissals, the more fundamental issue of consent has been ignored. A defining principle…
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Posted: 8:00 am on 20th April 2012
Productivity in Australia is lagging and many business leaders and commentators think it’s only going to get worse. Ahead of the review into the Fair Work Act, many employers have flagged the new workplace legislation as one of the main culprits behind our slowing productivity. They say the Act has made the workplace significantly less flexible, and as a result, less productive. In other words, they are saying labour productivity…
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Posted: 8:00 am on 9th April 2012
In a rare moment of clarity, the government has implemented measures designed to help ease Australia’s much-talked-about skills shortage. US tradies – plumbers, electricians, construction workers, among others – will be given immediate access to provisional work licences as soon as they arrive in Australia so they can begin working immediately. While this move is a step in the right direction, Australia can do more to capitalise on the difficult…
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