Month: December 2020

Greens Leader, Adam Bandt, said the Greens will move a series of amendments to the government’s industrial relations reforms to outlaw insecure work, by introducing a legal presumption that all employment is permanent and ongoing unless there are compelling, exceptional business reasons to the contrary.
The amendments will also give effect to the Greens’ Fair Work Amendment (Making Australia More Equal) Bill 2018, which extends to gig economy workers the protections available to employees. Given Labor has also recently adopted a similar policy stance, the Greens’ amendments have a good chance of succeeding in the Senate.
“The Greens will move to outlaw insecure work,” Bandt said.
“Insecure work in Australia has got out of control.
“Casual, contract and gig economy workers are all getting a raw deal.
“The Greens will move to change the government’s bill so that every job is permanent and ongoing unless there are exceptional business reasons to the contrary.
“If our amendments pass, then insecure work will become a thing of the past, and casual, contract and gig economy workers could go to the Fair Work Commission to get their jobs converted to ongoing employment.”
“The government’s IR reforms will entrench the insecure work crisis, rather than address it, so the Greens will bring on amendments to ensure that every worker gets the rights they deserve.
“The recent deaths of five delivery riders has highlighted the lack of protections and entitlements for gig economy workers. The Greens’ will move amendments that will also give the Fair Work Commission the power to extend minimum wages, terms and conditions from the Fair Work Act 2009, modern awards or enterprise agreements to gig economy workers.”
“We’re also deeply concerned that the Attorney General, the highest law officer in the country, is undermining the Federal Court’s decision on casual workers and is working with big business to not only reverse the hard-fought win for casual workers rights, but is introducing legislation to prevent any future court ruling from providing full compensation to casual workers,” Bandt said.

The Australian Greens have warned that the government’s climate inaction is pouring fuel on fires incinerating our country’s iconic animals, landscapes, and flora, amid news that tens of thousands of koalas died during last season’s bushfires, and as an uncontrolled bushfire tears through an untouched world heritage rainforest.
Greens Environment spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young will this week move a ‘Save the Koala Bill’ to protect the habitat of Australia’s most iconic tree-hugger, in a bid to stave off extinction.
“Today Australia is watching one of our national treasures burn. The Fraser Island fire comes on the back of record-breaking temperatures and is a further harbinger of the climate emergency that we face,” Greens Leader, Adam Bandt said.
“Scott Morrison should be ashamed of the coal-fuelled destruction being wreaked on his watch. While the nation was burning last year he left for Hawaii, and now that it’s happening again, the best he can do is vow not to cheat on his climate commitments.
“In just five days Australia will have to front up to a UN hosted climate summit demanding greater ambition to reduce emissions. While other nations are doubling and tripling their ambition, all Scott Morrison is vowing is not to cook the books, and our nation’s precious wildlife is paying the price for his inaction.
“This constant cycle of destruction will become the norm unless Scott Morrison stops dragging his feet on climate action. If we don’t want to have billions of our animals burnt every summer, we need to rapidly transition off coal, oil and gas,” Bandt said.
Greens Environment Spokesperson Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said:
“The Greens will this week move to introduce a Save the Koala Bill to prevent further decimation of precious habitat and to help ensure our wildlife have a place to call home.
“The Bill will legislate a moratorium on clearing of critical koala habitat which is absolutely vital to saving the species.
“After the devastation of the 2019-20 climate fires which burnt through 12 million hectares of primarily forest and woodland, the Morrison Government should not be approving any further land clearing.
“The WWF report released today confirms our worst fears about the incomprehensible number of wildlife killed in the 2019-20 climate fires.
“Included in the three billion native species impacted by the fires is more than 60,000 koalas, with some of the worst losses on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.
“In NSW where koalas will be extinct by 2050 without urgent action to save them, 8,000 of our iconic species were killed or injured.
“Fires are now already burning across the country, including on Fraser Island a World Heritage Site.
“We are facing another devastating summer for our environment and wildlife, yet the Environment Minister is nowhere to be seen.
“The Minister is missing in action. Where is she? What is the plan for protecting our wildlife this summer?”

Today Labor has launched the Child Care Calculator so Australian families can find out how much cheaper child care will be under an Albanese Labor Government.
This new website is a useful tool for the over one million families that will be better off under Labor’s Cheaper  Child Care for Working Families plan.
Under this plan, Labor will:

• Scrap the $10,560 child care subsidy cap which often sees women losing money from an extra day’s work;
• Lift the maximum child care subsidy rate to 90 per cent; and
• Increase child care subsidy rates and taper them for every family earning less than $530,000.

Labor’s plan will make child care more affordable for 97 per cent of families in the system, and remove financial barriers that disincentivise second income earners, predominantly women, to work full-time.
Importantly, Labor will keep working to fix Australia’s broken child care system, which currently locks out more than 100,000 families because they just can’t afford it.
The Productivity Commission will conduct a comprehensive review of the sector with the aim of implementing a universal 90 per cent subsidy for all families.
The ACCC will design a price regulation mechanism to shed light on costs and fees and drive them down for good. The ACCC will examine the relationship between funding, fees, profits and educators’ salaries.
The Coalition’s child care system has failed parents – particularly women. It has created a financial disincentive for many second wage earners to work full time, or even increase their hours.
On top of that, since this Government was elected in 2013, child care fees have skyrocketed by 35.9 per cent.
Labor has put forward a plan for cheaper child care that is win, win, win – it is good for parents, good for children, and good for the economy.

The Australian Government’s early action to rapidly increase the number of Registered Nurses (RN) who have the necessary skills to treat people infected with COVID-19, has significantly strengthened our ability to respond to the pandemic.
The Government provided $6.6 million for the delivery of two nurse training programs in response to COVID-19 – one to refresh clinical skills, and the other to provide training in critical and high dependency care in response to the pandemic.
Minister for Health Greg Hunt said more than 2,700 RNs completed the refresher training, and almost 16,500 completed critical care and/or high dependency care training to upskill to meet the forecasted need during the pandemic.
“The training programs ­– separately developed and delivered by the Australian College of Nursing (ACN) and Medcast – significantly built up the skills and knowledge of Australian nurses and gave them greater confidence to redeploy to roles in response to COVID-19,” Minister Hunt said.
“Training outcomes showed the online delivery mechanisms used were cost efficient, supported rapid access, and provided consistent education across multiple health networks and hospitals nationwide.
“As Australia and the world continue to navigate the COVID-19 health emergency, nurses remain at the forefront of our health care.
“I would like to thank every nurse who stepped up during this challenging time, working hard to aid the recovery of Australians sick with COVID-19. They have saved lives and protected lives.”
Minister for Regional Health Mark Coulton said nurses continued to play an essential role in stopping the spread of COVID-19 in regional, rural and remote communities.
“Our highly skilled nurses, along with our doctors and allied health workers, have been the true heroes of the pandemic,” Minister Coulton said.
“This Nurse Practitioner Week, I thank every nurse across Australia, and pass on my gratitude to those who completed their refresher training or upskilled in order to support the nation through such challenging times.
“Nurses are the lifeblood of rural communities, responding to complex health needs away from major hospitals, and this year has exemplified the vital and necessary role they play.”
The Ministers said it was fitting nurses received special recognition in 2020, the World Health Organisation’s International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, given their immense contribution.
The Australian Government has committed more than $16 billion to the emergency health response to the pandemic.
The ACN and Medcast evaluation reports on the outcomes of the COVID-19 nurse training are available from the Department of Health website at health.gov.au/resources/publications.