Federal public servants might win higher pay rises if they agree to take fewer sickies, as part of a softening of the Abbott government’s public sector bargaining rules. With wage talks in stalemate across the 160,000-strong Commonwealth bureaucracy, departmental bosses have been given a little more flexibility to try to break the impasse and can […]
Brisbane : Food supplied to Australia’s biggest supermarkets and fast food chains is being processed or picked by migrant workers in slave-like conditions, it has been reported.An ABC Four Corners program has revealed widespread exploitation of people on working holiday visas.At a chicken processing factory, migrants have been forced to work 18 hours a day, […]
Sydney : Brown coal’s share of the main national electricity grid has surged to its highest level since September 2012, increasing the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, energy consultants Pitt & Sherry say.The fresh data came as climate change ministers from around the country met in Adelaide on Monday to discuss how state governments might co-operate […]
Sydney : A Sydney university is taking seven of its own students to the NSW Supreme Court in a bid to dissolve an independent student association and seize more than half a million dollars in funds.Macquarie University will seek to forcibly close the postgraduate representative association (MUPRA) and absorb $500,000 in its reserves, according to […]
Perth : A mining company that secured a lucrative coal exploration licence over the Obeid family’s farm is pushing ahead with a legal challenge to a report which led to the licence being cancelled, in an apparent bid to win compensation from the state government.Cascade Coal has asked the NSW Court of Appeal to strike […]