NCAT disqualifies former Wagga Wagga councillor from holding civic office

Details

Published: Monday, 26 June 2023 12:29

There’s a lot of history in this for us, both in relation to the former councillor, and the Office of Local Government.

On 19 June, NCAT decided to disqualify former Councillor Funnell from holding civic office for two years. OLG made the application, we had attempted to intervene in support of the OLG action, which they opposed - something they seem duty-bound to do any time we raise anything.

It’s good to see a serial pest finally disqualified but it is reasonable to wonder why the prosecution was limited to two instances of misconduct when OLG would have had at least 20 to choose from, and why they would propose only a two year penalty, meaning he couldn’t stand for election in the next local government elections, when the multitude and frequency of complaints would warrant longer. And he had indicated he wasn’t interested in standing at the next election anyway, and didn’t contest the penalty...

But, there is more to this. The two examples of misconduct were in 2020, and where Tim Hurst, former director of OLG had famously said in an order about the same person that there had not been “any prior offending or post event conduct in the past two years and the lack of previous incidents of misconduct”.  Really?

Here is a letter we sent to the current Executive Director, Local Government, DPIE, Brett Whitworth, on 19 June, with some important questions.

We will publish a full report in our July issue.

Department of Planning creates its own Sagittarius A

Details

Published: Monday, 26 June 2023 12:29

Planning Ministers and the Department of Planning (or whatever name it’s known as over the years) has always had a role in making life difficult in Local Government. The introduction of private certification, accreditation of council employees, creating parallel accountabilities,the fantasy about standard model codes is and templates hammered over local government areas, and planning and environmental obligations without consideration of whether one size really does fit all, but the Planning Portal? Really?

Whose ludicrous idea was it to set up an arrangement that is currently, from reports from frustrated members across the state, meaning things that could have been done previously in 15 or 20 minutes can now take three hours?

Churning work, creating backlogs, irritating applicants, frustrating Council staff who want local planning instruments taking into consideration local conditions and practices, not standard conditions that frustrate everyone, sucking the joy out of planning and the hopes and dreams of Council planners, disappearing into the black hole.

And the State gets the fees! And the control.

How is your experience of the Portal?

If you’re wondering what portal, it’s the ****ing Portal, just to be clear. That’s how any member who rings us describes it.

Please let us know, don’t write the great Australian novel, just some summaries and hard-hitting points, so we have some broad information with which to pursue Government.

Quo Vadis OLG?

Details

Published: Monday, 26 June 2023 12:29

What, with the Award and all, and a new Government more accessible and more philosophically aligned to unions, the Office of Local Government’s Employment Reference Group has not met for months. That doesn’t mean that the things that are important to the local government unions and the employers are not being dealt with, just that they’re not being dealt with in the frustrating, obtuse, sloth-like, dawdling manner they have been over the last almost 2 years since the industry consensus on getting rid of senior staff below the level of GM was established.

This has been an issue we’ve argued about for at least seven years when OLG told us that if we can get a consensus with the employers about what to do, then they will present it to Government. It wasn’t an encouragement, it was a cruel hoax, put to us by someone who didn’t believe a consensus was possible. So then, when we did, they dawdled.

We are not the only ones to be disappointed with the OLG and its indifference, bordering on hostility, to the historic consensus to provide fair employment for local government senior staff by putting them all back on the Award, nor their embarrassing statistics about the how long it takes conducting investigations, particularly those against councillor’s behaving badly, nor the secrecy of their processes and their refusal to be transparent, nor their preference to cover up rather than admit error, and fix it.

The NSW Audit Office on 25 May released a report on the effectiveness of OLG, finding OLG:

• does not conduct effective, proactive monitoring to enable timely risk-based responses to council performance and compliance issues,
• has not clearly defined and communicated its regulatory role to ensure that its priorities are well understood,
• does not routinely review the results of its regulatory activities to improve its approaches, and
• lacks an adequate framework to define, measure and report on the OLG’s performance, limiting transparency and its accountability.

Wow, tell us what you really think!

If you’re interested, here is the report: https://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/our-work/reports/regulation-and-monitoring-of-local-government-0

A new NSW Government, and some new Ministers to make our lives and work better - yes, hope does spring eternal

Details

Published: Monday, 26 June 2023 12:29

The election of a Labor government, not quite a majority but with a working majority with assistance from Independents and the Greens, means we can reasonably expect a Minister for Local Government with more of an interest in fair employment practices in the industry, and an Industrial Relations Minister prepared to review the Industrial Relations Act, and the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to make it more balanced, objective, and effective.

UnionsNSW has been critical of appointments made to the IRC by the former Coalition Government and on the day after the election result described the NSW Commission as “hamstrung and biased”. Clearly there will be pressure to make some changes and the Government has committed to do so.

(Historic note, industrial tribunals work better if there is a balance between members from the employers’ side and members from the unions’ side. Some of the best members of the Commission over the decades have been employer representatives who have risen to the challenge of dealing with equity and fairness. It goes without saying that representatives from the union side understand that already. The current Commission has one Chief Commissioner and five Commissioners, only one of whom could broadly be described as having had experience with the union side. Time for a change.)

The new Industrial Relations and Work Health and Safety Minister is the Hon Sophie Cotsis, member for Canterbury. The Minister was formerly an official of UnionsNSW, a union official for the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, a political advisor to former Treasurer Michael Costa, and then a two-year stint in a private sector infrastructure company before starting her parliamentary career in 2010. A BA from Macquarie and a Master of Legal Studies from UTS. We like Sophie, (if we may be so bold) she has already established a process to review the NSW Industrial Relations Act, we’ve submitted some proposed legislative changes, and we expect to be meeting in the next couple of months.

The new Local Government Minister is the Hon Ron Hoenig. A hugely experienced councillor, Mayor of Botany for 31 years while practising as a barrister and working for the Public Defender. He became the member for Heffron in 2012. A committed local government true believer, better company than most when we had a short stint together on an advisory committee established by a former local government Minister Ernie Page, and we look forward to the new Minister putting a rocket up the Office of Local Government and flushing out the blockages that have delayed introduction of fair employment arrangements for senior staff.

Do you have to be a union member to get the increases and benefits?

Details

Published: Monday, 26 June 2023 12:29

The Little Red Hen was a story written in the late 19^th century in an anthropomorphic farmyard where the Little Red Hen asks her friends to help plant the wheat, help cut the wheat, help thresh the wheat, help take the wheat to the mill and help make the flour into bread. They all refuse, the Duck, the Cat, and the Dog all say, “not I”, and the Little Red Hen says, “then I will”.

She then made and baked the bread and said, “who will eat this bread” and her lazy freeloading friends all said, “I will”. And the Little Red Hen said “no, no! I will do that”. And she did.

It’s a morality tale but it wouldn’t be in depaNews if we didn’t see the moral of all you good union members paying fees to fund the negotiation of a new award, and your workplace “friends” who don’t do so, still expecting to share the benefits.

When the Award is negotiated every three years, the unions always argue that it should be union members only. The unions negotiate it, growing the wheat, threshing it, making the bread etc, and those who aren’t union members should pay something to share in the improvements negotiated effectively on their behalf. A fee equivalent to the membership fee to the unions who have negotiated this, for example.

It’s always a joyful argument, particularly when LGNSW makes a point of not providing any services at all to councils that aren’t a member of that organisation. We think that’s the right approach, and the principal that underpins it should be reflected in the Award. Clearly what is good for the goose isn’t accepted to be good for the gander.

Given the significant improvements in this Award, now is a good time to remind your freeloading colleagues that this isn’t a present.It’s not a gift from the Councils, nor the unions with their best wishes, but something that was negotiated by unions which are resourced only by fees paid by members.

Try making a claim at BUPA for medical costs if you ‘re not a member, and see how that goes!

Let the good times roll, 2023 State Award made today

Details

Published: Monday, 26 June 2023 12:28

Commissioner Muir this morning consented to the making of a new Local Government State Award 2023, to apply from the first pay period after 1 July. We provided a summary of the more significant benefits of the new Award in emails to members on 22 May, with a copy of the proposed draft Award. It has lots to recommend it.

Starting with a 4.5% pay increase from the first pay period on or after 1 July, in addition to the employer’s obligation to increase compulsory superannuation by another 0.5% from the same date. What’s not to like?

The Award was made with the consent of the LGNSW, the employers’ representative and the four unions - depa, the LGEA, the USU and the NSW Nurses and Midwives, who have historically had a few members in a few councils.

This process began with the parties exchanging logs of claims in September 2022, we’ve met consistently, had our good days and our bad days, but this is an important document with significant pay increases that are the envy of the State Public Sector in New South Wales. Those workers, including jobs that saved us all during Covid, are still arguing with the NSW government for something above 4%.

There are some really good benefits for members, achieved by the unions over a long and intense period of negotiation.

4.5% from the first pay period after 1 July this year, 3.5% from the first pay period after 1 July next year, and 3% from the first pay period after 1 July 2025. And in 2024 and 2025, there will also be an additional one-off payment of 0.5% of ordinary pay with a minimum payment of $1000. Nice!

We’re particularly pleased that the Award will acknowledge we don’t work all the time, and there will be a right to disconnect - out of hours when you’re away from the office, weekends and when you’re on leave. When Council started rolling out mobile phones to staff, many thought it meant that employees were available for work at all hours. That’s not the case, employees are only required to work outside hours if they are on call and receiving the on call allowance under the Award. The right to disconnect, established in this Award, is a provision which will send a cold shiver down the backs of bosses who think they can ring you, and have you answer the phone, any time they like. No more you can’t, mate.

There is also a provision to recredit annual or long service leave if you’re sick or injured while you’re on leave, and can’t get the benefit of the break (the return of an historic entitlement forfeited years ago but embraced after a lot of bad Covid experiences), catch up increases in car allowances, an annual minimum car allowance of $10,000, a new allowance for electric vehicles, and a commitment for us to meet and monitor the rollout of electric vehicles and how costs should be properly shared between the Council and employees who have them as a leaseback vehicle.

Plus, we’ve clarified and emphasised the obligation on employers “to provide adequate staff and other resources to enable employees to carry out their duties and functions over the course of working hours and are not unreasonable”. It’s now clause 10(ii) and every employee in the industry should memorise it and make sure that their employer respects it, or else!

But wait, there’s more: broader rights to request flexibility for work; expanded bereavement leave; reimbursement for “communication” expenses if the Council wants you to use your own phone or device; increases in on-call allowances (great timing now you’re not obliged to pick up your phone out of hours); incorporation of changes to parental leave under the Federal Paid Parental Leave entitlements; higher-grade pay if you’re required to work in a higher position while that person is on an RDO, and more.

The 4.5% is the biggest increase in the history of the State Award since it was first made in 1991. It wasn’t easily achieved, it took hard work, required the employers’ organisation’s acceptance of the importance of paying a decent increase because of cost of living increases and mortgages, despite protestations from councils which would have rather you had less, or nothing. It was a genuine cooperative exercise with a common goal of building a more rewarding industry in which to work.

Make sure you take advantage of its benefits.

Let the good times roll, 2023 State Award made today.

Details

Published: Monday, 19 June 2023 13:54

Commissioner Muir this morning consented to the making of a new Local Government State Award 2023 to apply from the first pay period after 1 July. We provided a summary of the more significant benefits of the new Award in emails to members on 22 May, with a copy of the proposed draft Award. It has lots to recommend it.

Starting with a 4.5% pay increase from the first pay period on or after 1 July in addition to the employer’s obligation to increase compulsory superannuation by another 0.5% from the same date. What’s not to like?

The Award was made with the consent of the LGNSW, the employers’ representative and the four unions - depa, the LGEA, the USU and the NSW Nurses and Midwives, who have historically had a few members in a few councils.

This process began with the parties exchanging logs of claims in September 2022, we’ve met consistently, had our good days and our bad days, but this is an important document with significant pay increases that are the envy of the State Public Sector in New South Wales. Those workers, including jobs that saved us all during Covid, are still arguing with the NSW government for something above 4%.

There are some really good benefits for members, achieved by the unions over a long and intense period of negotiation.

4.5% from the first pay period after 1 July this year, 3.5% from the first pay period after 1 July next year, and 3% from the first pay period after 1 July 2025. And in 2024 and 2025, there will also be an additional one-off payment of 0.5% of ordinary pay with a minimum payment of $1000. Nice!

We’re particularly pleased that the Award will acknowledge we don’t work all the time, and there will be a right to disconnect - out of hours when you’re away from the office, weekends and when you’re on leave. When Council started rolling out mobile phones to staff, many thought it meant that employees were available for work at all hours. That’s not the case, employees are only required to work outside hours if they are on call and receiving the on call allowance under the Award. The right to disconnect, established in this Award is a provision which will send a cold shiver down the backs of bosses who think they can ring you, and have you answer the phone, any time they like. No more you can’t, mate.

There is also a provision to recredit annual or long service leave if you’re sick or injured while you’re on leave and can’t get the benefit of the break (the return of an historic entitlement forfeited years ago but embraced after a lot of bad Covid experiences), catch up increases in car allowances, an annual minimum car allowance of $10,000, a new allowance for electric vehicles, and a commitment for us to meet and monitor the rollout of electric vehicles and how costs should be properly shared between the Council and employees who have them as a leaseback vehicle.

Plus, we’ve clarified and emphasised the obligation on employers “to provide adequate staff and other resources to enable employees to carry out their duties and functions over the course of working hours and are not unreasonable”, it’s now clause 10(ii) and every employee in the industry should memorise it and make sure that their employer respects it, or else!

But wait, there’s more: broader rights to request flexibility for work; expanded bereavement leave; reimbursement for “communication” expenses if the Council wants you to use your own phone or device; increases in on-call allowances (great timing now you’re not obliged to pick up your phone out of hours); incorporation of changes to parental leave under the Federal Paid Parental Leave entitlements; higher-grade pay if you’re required to work in a higher position while that person is on an RDO, and more.

The 4.5% is the biggest increase ever in the history of the State Award since it was first made in 1991. It wasn’t easily achieved, it took hard work, required the employers’ organisation’s acceptance of the importance of paying a decent increase because of cost of living increases and mortgages, despite protestations from councils which would have rather you had less, or nothing. It was a genuine cooperative exercise with a common goal of building a more rewarding industry in which to work.

Make sure you take advantage of its benefits.

Do you have to be a union member to get the increases and benefits?

The Little Red Hen was a story written in the late 19^th century in an anthropomorphic farmyard where the Little Red Hen asks her friends to help plant the wheat, help cut the wheat, help thresh the wheat, help take the wheat to the mill and help make the flour into bread. They all refuse, the Duck, the Cat, and the Dog all say, “not I”, and the Little Red Hen says, “then I will”.

She then made and baked the bread and said, “who will eat this bread” and her lazy freeloading friends all said, “I will”. And the Little Red Hen said “no, no! I will do that”. And she did.

It’s a morality tale but it wouldn’t be in depaNews if we didn’t see the moral of all you good union members paying fees to fund the negotiation of a new award, and your workplace “friends” who don’t do so, still expecting to share the benefits.

When the Award is negotiated every three years, the unions always argue that it should be union members only. The unions negotiate it, growing the wheat, threshing it, making the bread etc, and those who aren’t union members should pay something to share in the improvements negotiated effectively on their behalf. A fee equivalent to the membership fee to the unions who have negotiated this, for example.

It’s always a joyful argument, particularly when LGNSW makes a point of not providing any services at all to councils that aren’t a member of that organisation. We think that’s the right approach, and the principal and underpins it should be reflected in the Award. Clearly what is good for the goose isn’t accepted to be good for the gander.

Given the significant improvements in this Award, now is a good time to remind your freeloading colleagues that this isn’t a present, it’s not a gift from the Council’s, nor the unions with their best wishes, but something that was negotiated by unions which are resourced only by fees paid by members.

Try making a claim at BUPA for medical costs if you ‘re not a member, and see how that goes!

A new NSW Government, and some new Ministers to make our lives and work better - yes, hope does spring eternal.

The election of a Labor government, not quite a majority but with a working majority with assistance from Independents and the Greens, means we can reasonably expect a Minister for Local Government with more of an interest in fair employment practices in the industry, and an Industrial Relations Minister prepared to review the Industrial Relations Act, and the NSW Industrial Relations Commission to make it more balanced, objective, and effective.

UnionsNSW has been critical of appointments made to the IRC by the former Coalition Government and on the day after the election result described the NSW Commission as “hamstrung and biased”. Clearly there will be pressure to make some changes and the Government has committed to do so.

(Historic note, industrial tribunals work better if there is a balance between members from the employers’ side and members from the unions’ side. Some of the best members of the Commission over the decades have been employer representatives who have risen to the challenge of dealing with equity and fairness. It goes without saying that representatives from the union side understand that already. The current Commission has one Chief Commissioner and five Commissioners, only one of whom could broadly be described as having had experience with the union side. Time for a change.)

The new Industrial Relations and Work Health and Safety Minister is the Hon Sophie Cotsis, member for Canterbury. The Minister was formerly an official of UnionsNSW, a union official for the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, a political advisor to former Treasurer Michael Costa, and then a two-year stint in the private sector infrastructure company before starting her parliamentary career in 2010. A BA from Macquarie and a Master of Legal Studies from UTS. We like Sophie, (if we may be so bold) she has already established a process to review the NSW Industrial Relations Act, we’ve submitted some proposed legislative changes, and we expect to be meeting in the next couple of months.

The new Local Government Minister is the Hon Ron Hoenig. A hugely experienced councillor, Mayor of Botany for 31 years while practising as a barrister and working for the Public Defender. He became the member for Heffron in 2012. A committed local government true believer, better company than most when we had a short stint together on an advisory committee established by a former local government Minister Ernie Page, and we look forward to the new Minister putting a rocket up the Office of Local Government and flushing out the blockages that have delayed introduction of fair employment arrangements for senior staff.

Quo Vadis OLG?

What, with the Award and all, and a new Government more accessible and more philosophically aligned to unions, the Office of Local Government’s Employment Reference Group has not met for months. That doesn’t mean that the things that are important to the local government unions and the employer are not being dealt with, just that they’re not being dealt with in the frustrating, obtuse, sloth-like, dawdling manner they have been over the last almost 2 years since the industry consensus on getting rid of senior staff below the level of GM was established.

This has been an issue we’ve argued about for at least seven years when OLG told us that if we can get a consensus with the employers about what to do, then they will present it to Government. It wasn’t an encouragement, it was a cruel hoax, put to us by someone who didn’t believe a consensus was possible. So, then they dawdled.

We are not the only ones to be disappointed with the OLG and its indifference, bordering on hostility, to the historic consensus to provide fair employment for local government senior staff by putting them all back on the Award, nor their embarrassing statistics about the how long it takes conducting investigations, particularly those against councillor’s behaving badly, nor the secrecy of their processes and their refusal to be transparent, nor their preference to cover up rather than admit error, and fix it.

The NSW Audit Office on 25 May released a report on the effectiveness of OLG, finding OLG:

• does not conduct effective, proactive monitoring to enable timely risk-based responses to council performance and compliance issues,
• has not clearly defined and communicated its regulatory role to ensure that its priorities are well understood,
• does not routinely review the results of its regulatory activities to improve its approaches, and
• lacks an adequate framework to define, measure and report on the OLG’s performance, limiting transparency and its accountability.

Wow, tell us what you really think!

If you’re interested, here is the report: https://www.audit.nsw.gov.au/our-work/reports/regulation-and-monitoring-of-local-government-0

Department of Planning creates its own Sagittarius A

Planning Ministers and the Department of Planning (or whatever name it’s known as over the years) has always had a role in making life difficult in Local Government. The introduction of private certification, accreditation of council employees, creating parallel accountabilities, the fantasy about standard model code is and templates hammered over local government areas and planning and environmental obligations without consideration of whether one size really does fit all, but the Planning Portal? Really?

Whose ludicrous idea was it to set up an arrangement that is currently, from reports from frustrated members across the state, meaning things that could have been done previously in 15 or 20 minutes can now take three hours?

Churning work, creating backlogs, irritating applicants, frustrating Council staff who want local planning instruments taken into consideration local conditions and practices, not standard conditions that frustrate everyone, sucking the joy out of planning and the hopes and dreams of Council planners, disappearing into the black hole.

And the State gets the fees! And the control.

How is your experience of the Portal?

If you’re wondering what portal, it’s the ****ing Portal, just to be clear. That’s how any member who rings us describes it.

Please let us know, don’t write the great Australian novel, just some summaries and hard-hitting points, so we have some broad information with which to pursue Government.

Ian Robertson 

Secretary

26 June 2023    

Humpty Dumpty inspires management at Mid Coast

Details

Published: Wednesday, 31 May 2023 16:30

Everyone knows Humpty Dumpty. A book by Lewis Carroll published in 1872 and a nursery rhyme, but rarely adopted by management in local government as a role model.

But at Mid Coast, the ████████, the GM and ████████ expert have done precisely that - embraced Humphrey’s famous philosophy about the use of language:

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

“The question is” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is”, said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master - that’s all”.

The three unions are involved in a long-running dispute with Mid Coast, not so much over what words do mean, but what they don’t. Everyone knows that the award requires councils to have a salary system, clause 7 Salary Systems of the Award has twelve subclauses about how it should operate and critically subclause (xii) provides that if a Council introduces a new salary system and you’ve got better progression and pay on your existing salary system, you can choose to remain on that.

That’s why ████████ think that if they can successfully argue that something which provides progression based on skills and performance is something qualitatively different to a salary system, then employees won’t have the protection of clause 7 (xii). This is a novel argument, the requirement to have salary systems at each Council is a compulsory obligation in the industry since 1992, but no one has been genius enough to try to disarm clause 7(xii) by arguing that the salary system they want to introduce, isn’t a salary system at all.

These are the same people who, after the issue was set down and a timetable established for arbitration, thought they could blithely go ahead and ignore the “status quo,’ tradition which is always protected in disputes and grievances on occasions like this, and start implementing what they want to do anyway, even though it’s going to be determined in November.

The LGEA dispute went back to the IRC and the geniuses learned an important lesson about what constitutes the status quo - it’s always the arrangements that existed prior to what the employer wants to do, or change, that caused the dispute.

This will run like a miserable weeping sore until it’s arbitrated in November - unless the ████████ starts taking advice from people who know what they’re doing.

OLG opposes our application to join and support them in NCAT

Details

Published: Tuesday, 21 March 2023 16:14

Apparently OLG believes that as the regulator, they don’t need any help, encouragement or assistance from anyone else when they actually want to get their fingers out and regulate the bad behaviour of Councillors.

We reported last month we’d filed an application to be joined as a party in proceedings known as Office of Local Government and former councillor Funnell. We did this because of the experience of our members having been treated by this person as a councillor in a variety of unacceptable ways – threats, abuse, defaming on facebook, you name it.. We have responsibilities protecting the health and safety of our members, and if this person were to return to public office at Wagga Wagga, then it would be back on again, as it was while he was a councillor, to go the staff.

We were provided with a very tight timeframe after our application to file submissions and material and relied upon material we had already filed in proceedings related to the former councillor, but primarily focused on the OLG’s insistence upon being an investigator and regulator hiding behind the curtains. A significant proportion of those documents contained evidence about the former councillor and his attitude to staff and what he believed he could and couldn’t do to them, and how he should or shouldn’t treat them.

While OLG has the power to bring these actions to NCAT, they don’t have the responsibility to protect employees that we do, and in any event, their procedures and processes are so confidential, no one ever really knows what they’re doing and, as the recent investigation into setting up a new framework for complaints against councillor behaviour showed, the average time for OLG to conduct an investigation, that does conclude with some kind of penalty, is over 400 days!

400 days! Hardly something that stands as good evidence of a highly competent and professional business.

Significantly, in their submissions opposing us becoming a party, they focused on an assertion that we wanted to re-agitate issues in our earlier applications, one of which remains waiting for a decision. This is not the case, we thought it clear in our original submissions but made that clear in our response. It’s both interesting and disappointing how readily they fall into their cover-up of the matters we were agitating in the other proceedings.

Too many Sir Humphreys involved here.

How are the Award negotiations going?

Details

Published: Tuesday, 21 March 2023 16:14

The Local Government State Award was made by consent of the parties in October 1991 to operate from 1992. It was a significant development in local government, removing separate awards, hundreds of classifications and establishing salary systems to allow employees to progress based on the acquisition and use of skills.

It has been varied by consent ever since - demonstrating that there is generally a common approach in the industry between the employers and the unions about the purpose of the Award, what is important in it and what may need to be changed. It’s an opportunity to fix things that might be unclear, or could be clearer as well as keeping up-to-date changed standards.

The unions rely on their executives and membership for feedback, LGNSW relies upon the expertise (sic) of a consultative group of general managers and HR people to provide input on the employer’s side. LGNSW never discloses the composition of the consultative group, and depa has never really wanted to know. If it’s reflective of the industry, it will comprise the good, the bad and the ugly, but we really don’t know how many of them are good. If any.

Having an historic consensus doesn’t mean it’s an easy process. It isn’t. The three unions and LGNSW as the employer party all have logs of claims for things they would like discussed during the negotiations. Sometimes, there are areas that can’t be agreed but the parties agree to have whichever member of the Commission is managing the process conduct an arbitration. But unlike other arbitrations where they hear submissions and evidence from the union or unions and the employers, we have agreed beforehand that we will accept whatever is recommended by the Commission, forfeiting the usual right to appeal.

This happened to allow the introduction of the requirement that councils pay the costs of accreditation for certifiers by the Building Professionals Board as it was at the time, and its successors, and when clause 9(i) was introduced in the 2020 Award.

We’ve had calls from members wondering what’s happening but it’s a process where agreements are made in principle as we work our way through the various logs, but all subject at the end to what is agreed on a pay increase. The higher the pay increase, the fewer the beneficial changes in the Award.

It is a work in progress, we meet every couple of weeks, we report to the IRC and have Commissioner Muir, on this occasion, try to bring the parties together on those areas where there are difficulties, all with the expectation that we will have a new Award made to operate from the first pay period after 1 July 2023.