Fed: Fair Work Australia could be unconstitutional: Labor

AAP General News (Australia)
04-26-2007
Fed: Fair Work Australia could be unconstitutional: Labor

CANBERRA, April 26 AAP - Labor's plan to merge the Australian Industrial Relations
Commission and other agencies with a new workplace umpire is a step backwards and may
be unconstitutional, a business group says.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) said it opposed the the proposal
to scrap the commission, the Office of the Employment Advocate and the Office of Workplace
Services and replace them with a new agency called Fair Work Australia.

The group's chief executive, Peter Hendy, today questioned the legality of Fair Work
Australia, saying the proposal was on "shaky ground".

"They're going to give this agency tribunal powers, they're going to give it policing
powers and they're going to give it court powers," he told reporters.

"And you can't actually do that under the federal constitution."

Labor's proposed IR system would erode the economic benefits of enterprise bargaining
and return the nation to centralised wage-fixing, Mr Hendy said.

"It's actually bad policy. It's actually giving more powers to a centralised super
agency and in that respect it's doing the exact opposite of the trend we've had in the
last 13 years of moving to enterprise-based bargaining," he said.

"We've moved away from a centralised wage fixing system to one where decisions are
made by enterprises with employees and employers working together.

"And they're moving back to the future of the old centralised wage-fixing system."

Reintroducing centralised wage fixing would increase the power and influence of union
bosses, he said.

AAP dcr/cjh/cdh

KEYWORD: WORKPLACE ACCI

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