Dear <<First Name>>, 

This week, the Federal Opposition has indicated it will move a private members bill to retrospectively legislate against any cuts to penalty rates, after the independent Fair Work Commission’s ruling of a reduction in five out of the 122 modern awards.

While it was an entirely independent decision, made by a Commission who thoroughly examined the case for years, not months, we’re all well aware of how politics works, and that it would be almost impossible to find a politician who’d pass up the opportunity to politicise such a controversial and high value decision.

However, a private members bill takes this issue far beyond political rhetoric.

For a political party to attempt to stop the ruling of an independent body (the same one it set up to prevent this kind of problem in the first place), is disquieting, and should sound alarm bells for everyone, no matter how you feel about penalty rates.

This is an attempt to leverage political power to undermine the independence of our entire industrial relations system. We can’t tell the umpire that because we didn’t like the score... Read more >>

Dominique Lamb, CEO