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Loopholes amendments "make a bad bill worse"

Amendments to the Closing Loopholes Bill have been "hurriedly prepared" and "do little to allay a raft of significant and growing employer concerns", critics say.

The amendments were introduced to Parliament yesterday, but still not available on the Bill's homepage at the time of publishing this article.

Last night, Employment Minister Tony Burke said in a press release that the proposed changes include:

• Clarifying the closing the labour hire 'loophole' measure to ensure service contracting is excluded. If an arrangement is to provide a service rather than the provision of labour, the Fair Work Commission will be prevented from making an order about it, Burke says. (This amendment was agreed with the Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association and reported in Shortlist last week);
• Clarifying the definition of casual employee, so that an employee who works a regular pattern of work can be a casual employee if there is no firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work, and ensuring penalties will not apply to employers for mistakenly misclassifying employees...