WA:Work Choices coming to WA: unions

AAP General News (Australia)
12-07-2010
WA:Work Choices coming to WA: unions

PERTH, Dec 7 AAP - Unions have hit out at the Western Australian government for sitting
on a controversial report for 14 months and then planning to sneak in what they say are
Work Choices-style laws into the state.

The WA government hired former coalition government adviser Steven Amendola to conduct
an independent review into the state's industrial relations system.

He presented the report to the government on October 30, 2009 with 193 recommendations.

The state government issued a two-page response to the report late on Monday but says
it is still considering which of the 193 recommendations to adopt.

But Unions WA secretary Simone McGurk told reporters Mr Amendola was not an independent
reviewer because he was an advocate for Work Choices and made similar recommendations
in his report.

"The report that's been delivered confirms those concerns that we had (from the start),"

she said.

Ms McGurk said it was likely that 60 per cent of the recommendations would be implemented,
forcing 300,000 workers to sign individual contracts.

She said the award system would also be dropped and the unfair dismissal laws would
be abolished for small business workers employed for less than 12 months.

"I think people are right to be quite suspicious about the way the government's decided
to release the report," she said.

"They haven't ruled out a number of items contained in the report and also they've
waited `til parliament has risen so there's no scrutiny from the parliament."

Ms McGurk said in the lead-up to Christmas it would be difficult to get serious policy
debate on the issues but said the unions of WA would work together to fight for the workers.

AAP anr/jsh

KEYWORD: AMENDOLA

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