Finance union warns banks to review WFH policies
Jonathan Barrett
The Finance Sector Union has warned employers they may be breaching workplace law if they reject flexible work requests without proper consideration, consultation or justification.
The FSU correspondence, sent to financial institutions across Australia, follows last month’s Fair Work Commission ruling that allowed Westpac employee, Karlene Chandler, to work from home, overturning an order from the bank to attend a corporate office two days a week.
Westpac was found to have breached various procedural requirements in responding to Chandler’s request. The bank also unsuccessfully argued it had reasonable business grounds for refusing her application.
The FSU member, who has young children, relied on a section of the Fair Work Act which allows eligible employees with carer responsibilities to make such requests.
The FSU national assistant secretary, Nicole McPherson, said:
We’ve told every major bank to get their own house in order — fix rejected work-from-home requests, comply with the law, and stop acting like flexibility is a privilege.
Westpac broke the law when it ignored its own worker’s rights and we’re putting every other bank on notice that they can’t do the same.
Westpac said earlier this week it was reflecting on its response to the decision and would decide on its next steps in the coming weeks.
The bank has defended its office policies, describing them as “one of the most flexible work-from-home positions in the marketplace”.
Key events
Be better than a ‘year two classroom’ says Pocock on question time
Independent David Pocock, who has seen plenty of drama himself in the Senate (catch up here), weighs into to yesterday’s drama where there were some accusations of “liar” thrown around the house chamber.
On a panel on the Today show this morning, Pocock says the behaviour in question time is often “disgraceful”.
He also makes the point that we don’t often learn much from the questions and answers either.
Question time I think is disgraceful a lot of the time, it’s question time not answer time, you ask questions, you don’t get too many answers a lot of the time … you’re having to sit listening to people yelling at each other and you don’t learn much. So pretty disappointing. And you’d hope that politicians could hold themselves to a little bit of a higher standard than, you know, a year two or three classroom.
Labor frontbencher, Amanda Rishworth, who joined Pocock on the panel, called it “a rowdy day in politics”, and agreed her six-year-old has “probably behaved better”.
When passions are high, question time can get a bit rowdy … but of course we can all do better.
Krishani Dhanji
Good morning, Krishani Dhanji with you here, thanks to Martin Farrer for getting us started.
It’s the last sitting day of the fortnight, and there’s just one more full week of joint sittings to go (starting Monday 24 November) before parliament closes shop for the year.
The biggest item still on the agenda for the government is the Environment Protection Act, which saw plenty of debate in the house yesterday, and should be pushed through that chamber today (but a reminder there’s still no pathway for the government to get it through the Senate). For the Liberals, it’s of course getting to a position on energy and net zero. Time is ticking.
We’ll likely see some more reaction today to that spat in parliament yesterday during house question time, when the two major parties traded barbs and called each other liars (yikes!)
Stick with us, it’s going to be a busy day.
Anne Davies
NSW Nationals leader says nothing ‘off the table’ on energy policy
In a bid to head off a potential rebellion among his members, the NSW Nationals leader, Dugald Saunders, said this week he wouldn’t be “taking anything off the table” when it comes to the state’s energy policy.
One option is to change the commitment to something more vauge, such as achieving the target sometime in the second half of the century while aggressively pursuing nuclear energy, which is not part of the 2020 roadmap.
The likely abandonment of the commitment will be a further blow to beleaguered Liberal leader, Mark Speakman, who is a firm supporter of the 2020 Energy roadmap.
The roadmap was devised by former energy minister and close colleague, Matt Kean, now the head of the Climate Change Authority.
The Minns Labor government has continued implementing the roadmap, though critics in the Nationals say it has done so without regard for the impacts on rural communities.
Depending on what the outcome is, the issue could spark a leadership challenge from Paul Toole, the leader before Saunders and who represents the more conservative wing of the party.
It could also fracture the Coalition agreement.
Saunders has tried to work with his Coalition partners, despite increasing friction over feral horses in the Kosciuszko national park, the Great Koala national park, controls on poker machines and more recently windfarms and energy policy.
But energy policy is a central issue and the Nationals abandonment of net zero will put enormous strains on the Coalition.
Some Liberals fear that walking away from net zero would leave the NSW Liberals facing the same kind of wipeout in heartland seats from teal independents.
The alternative of splitting from the Nationals is also being discussed, but that could leave the Liberals with no clear path back to government for a decade.
NSW Nationals likely to abandon net zero commitment
Anne Davies
The NSW Nationals are likely to formally abandon a commitment to net zero, when the party meets next Tuesday, after the federal party’s similar moves this week.
The move will create further turmoil for the NSW Coalition, which is already dealing with a leadership crisis and flagging poll numbers as it suffers from the brand damage inflicted by the federal infighting.
Sources said the Nationals’ party room was due to receive a briefing on Monday from the author of the report which underpinned the federal Nationals’ decision to walk away from net zero last week.
Senator Ross Cadell is due to brief the party on findings of the Nationals-aligned Page Research Centre. The review, led by Cadell and senator Matt Canavan, concluded “a net zero commitment no longer serves the interests of the Australian people”.
“Since Australia committed to its net zero target, electricity and gas prices have increased by around 40 per cent,” the report notes.
In June the NSW Nationals grassroots party voted to abandon net zero with a hefty majority, with the mover of the motion arguing that there was no point having targets without a clear path to get there.
But the vote was not binding on the parliamentary party.
On Tuesday the party will formally consider its position, amid anger among Nationals over the impacts on rural communities.
Finance union warns banks to review WFH policies
Jonathan Barrett
The Finance Sector Union has warned employers they may be breaching workplace law if they reject flexible work requests without proper consideration, consultation or justification.
The FSU correspondence, sent to financial institutions across Australia, follows last month’s Fair Work Commission ruling that allowed Westpac employee, Karlene Chandler, to work from home, overturning an order from the bank to attend a corporate office two days a week.
Westpac was found to have breached various procedural requirements in responding to Chandler’s request. The bank also unsuccessfully argued it had reasonable business grounds for refusing her application.
The FSU member, who has young children, relied on a section of the Fair Work Act which allows eligible employees with carer responsibilities to make such requests.
The FSU national assistant secretary, Nicole McPherson, said:
We’ve told every major bank to get their own house in order — fix rejected work-from-home requests, comply with the law, and stop acting like flexibility is a privilege.
Westpac broke the law when it ignored its own worker’s rights and we’re putting every other bank on notice that they can’t do the same.
Westpac said earlier this week it was reflecting on its response to the decision and would decide on its next steps in the coming weeks.
The bank has defended its office policies, describing them as “one of the most flexible work-from-home positions in the marketplace”.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer, bringing you the best of the overnight news and then it will be Krishani Dhanji to wrap an action-packed sitting fortnight.
The NSW Nationals appear set to follow the federal party’s example and formally abandon a commitment to net zero when the party meets next Tuesday. Such a move would intensify the crisis in the state party, which is struggling with poor poll ratings under its leader, Dugald Saunders. More in a moment.
The aged care minister, Sam Rae, says the time people have to wait for an assessment on home care packages has reduced in the past quarter to 23 days thanks to the government’s reforms of the “historically complex” system. He told the ABC’s 7.30 last night that he wanted an “agile” process but admitted the median would not be everyone’s experience. More details soon.
And the bank workers’ union has written to financial institutions warning them to respect requests for flexible working after a landmark ruling on WFH.
