Transition to Forward with Fairness Bill 2008 passes the Australian Parliament
The Workplace Relations Amendment (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Bill 2008 passed the Australian Parliament on 19 March 2008.
The Bill was introduced by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the Hon Julia Gillard MP, into the House of Representatives on 13 February 2008. The Bill will implement transitional arrangements to begin the process of phasing out the current WorkChoices laws.
The Government introduced a range of amendments to the Bill in the Senate responding to concerns raised during the Senate inquiry. The amendments include:
- enabling the Workplace Authority director to have regard in certain circumstances to state and territory laws about long service leave as part of the no-disadvantage test
- enabling an eligible employer to make an individual transitional employment agreement (ITEA) with a previous employee, provided that employee’s employment was not terminated in order to re-engage the former employee on the ITEA
- ensuring that outworker conditions in awards continue to have effect despite any less favourable terms of a workplace agreement
- enabling preserved State agreements to be extended and varied in limited circumstances
- clarifying the operation of certain provisions and correcting a number of minor technical oversights.
Following the passage of this legislation, a more substantial workplace relations Bill will be introduced into Parliament later this year to ensure the Government's proposed new workplace relations system can be fully operational by 1 January 2010.