Week 32 And Counting…

Date: 11 April 2000

Labor Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, Arch Bevis, said today that Workplace Relations Minister Reith has so far had 32 weeks to draft legislation dealing with the issue of employee entitlements.

Labor Shadow Minister for Industrial Relations, Arch Bevis, said today that Workplace Relations Minister Reith has so far had 32 weeks to draft legislation dealing with the issue of employee entitlements.
"In the parliament on 31 August last year Minister Reith said:

The intention of the government in respect of our legislative scheme is to work to put a national scheme in place by 1 January .

"Thirty two weeks later we still have no legislation in the parliament and no legislation foreshadowed on the forward program.
"Minister Reith may think that his inadequate administrative scheme is good enough but when you read the fine print we see that he has given himself the discretion to pay employees absolutely nothing. Paragraph 17.2 clearly says;

17.2 While the Commonwealth (and the State and Territories where they participate) will normally provide funds they are not bound to do so either generally or in any individual case.

"In fact this document even curtails the appeal process. If a worker is denied access to funds or wants to dispute the amount provided they have one opportunity to appeal to the Minister's own department. The appeal process is set out at paragraph 12.3:

12.3 Applicants can appeal to DEWRSB if they disagree with any decision under the scheme. The appeal will be considered by a more senior officer in the Department than the officer who made the original decision. Apart from this opportunity to seek a review, the decision of the Commonwealth in relation to eligibility and amount will be final.

"When you contrast the time it has taken for the guidelines of this scheme to be announced to the time it took this Minister to put legislation in place in the Patrick's waterfront situation, it is clear that this Government has no interest in dealing with the issue of protecting employee entitlements in a meaningful way", said Mr Bevis.

P0027

1 House Hansard 31 August 1999, pp 9507 - 9508.
2 Employee Entitlements Support Scheme, paragraph 17.2, p 7
3 Employee Entitlements Support Scheme, paragraph 12.3, p 6

For further information

Contact:	David Tansey
Union:	Electrical Trades Union
Phone:	(02) 6277 4518
Fax:	(02) 6277 8534
Email:	david.tansey@aph.gov.au
WWW:	http://www.alp.org.au

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