Unions NSW unveiled its “Better Services for a Better State” campaign at a seminar for public sector union delegates and Your Rights at Work activists in Parramatta on August 20.
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On August 6, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released labour force figures for July that showed unemployment remained steady at 5.8%. However, while the total number of people employed stayed stable, full-time jobs fell by 16,000 while part-time employment rose by 48,200.
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SYDNEY — Four construction workers, Nigel Gould, Peter Carr, Peter Riikonen and Andrew Jones who were sacked from the Thiess Services soil remediation project in Rhodes in June, were granted a “confidential settlement” on August 10. The workers are all members of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU).
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On August 4, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released figures that showed housing prices across Australia’s capital cities rose by 4.2% over the three months ending in June. The rapid increase has worried the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) enough for it to warn of a threat of a housing bubble.
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NSW TAFE teachers in NSW will stop work on August 11 after the NSW Department of Education and Training (DET) proposed an increase of 71 teaching hours a week, an end to the allocation of professional development and a lifting of the ceiling on hours taught in any one week.
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We’ve heard it all before — especially those of us who can remember the rhetoric of the Hawke and Keating governments. A little pain now and everything will be much better for everyone in the long run.
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On July 21, Access Economics released its forecasts for the Australian economy. It predicted Australia was through the worst of the recession.
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The Tamil Freedom Struggle in Sri LankaBy Chris Slee, Dr Brian Senewiratne & Vickramabahu KarunarathneResistance Books, 2009 38 pages, $5 (pb)Available from
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On June 10, the federal government’s new occupational health and safety (OH&S) peak body — the Safe Work Australia Council (SWAC) — held its first meeting. Workers in Australia took one more step towards eroded and unsafe working conditions.
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Australian cities are growing in population and in geographic spread. Urban sprawl, encouraged by governments at all levels, is pushing suburbia in all directions.
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The Business Council of Australia (BCA) representing Australias largest 100 corporations has called for a higher consumption tax and for the company tax to be halved. It did so in a submission to the federal governments review of taxation (the Henry review) made public on June 14
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On June 15, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) raised the rate of its standard variable mortgage by 0.1%. For home buyers with the typical $300,000 mortgage, this means repayments go up by $18 a month.