Australian Financial Review http://www.afr.com.au/content/000125/news/news3.html Tuesday, January 25, 2000 Bosses win under Reith scheme By Chelsey Martin and Nina Field Big business is set to escape the $100 million bill for a national scheme to protect workers' entitlements with the Minister for Workplace Relations, Mr Peter Reith, yesterday throwing his support behind a taxpayer-funded safety net. Under fire over the latest case of lost employee entitlements at National Textiles in the Hunter Valley, Mr Reith said he would move as soon as possible to establish a national scheme, jointly funded by the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments. Last August, Mr Reith released a discussion paper setting out the Government's two preferred options for the scheme: a basic payment safety net funded jointly by the Commonwealth and State Governments; and a compulsory insurance scheme for large and medium enterprises, with small business covered by a government-funded safety net. Mr Reith failed to fulfill plans to have a scheme in place by the new year after the Australian Democrats rejected virtually all his second round of workplace relations reforms. But yesterday he signalled that business was off the hook, saying he would seek immediate Cabinet approval for a government-funded scheme to cover a maximum of $20,000 in unpaid entitlements per employee. This would include up to: * Four weeks' unpaid wages. * Four weeks' annual leave. * Five weeks' pay in lieu of notice. * Four weeks' redundancy pay. * Twelve weeks' long service. Mr Reith said the scheme would be backdated to cover all workers from January 1. It is understood he came under pressure from some senior Cabinet ministers last year to opt for the business insurance option. But after intense lobbying from business and with concerns about compliance and the complexity of a compulsory insurance scheme, he said yesterday he was willing to put himself "out on a limb", claiming the government-funded option was "worth fighting for". "I think it's a fair thing and I'd like to see it happen and I intend going to the Cabinet in the next week or so," Mr Reith said. But he is yet to shore up support from the States and Territories, with only Queensland so far giving the Commonwealth in principle support to contribute funding. South Australia, NSW and Victoria all called for further details, saying that without them they were unable to make a decision on appropriate funding arrangements. NSW has previously told Canberra that it would prefer a flat rate premium insurance scheme. But Mr Reith is understood to be committed to the taxpayer-funded option. Under his plan, workers in those States refusing to contribute their 50 per cent share of funding will only be entitled to half the payment cap. Business groups yesterday welcomed the move as "positive". The chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, Mr Bob Herbert, said it would avoid imposing an "unfair impost" on companies. The director of industrial relations for Australian Business, Mr Dick Grozier, said it had been concerned that under the compulsory insurance scheme risk would simply be transferred from employers who did the right thing by their workers to those who did not. ACTU secretary-elect Mr Greg Combet criticised the new scheme, describing it as inadequate and called for workers to be fully compensated for their losses in insolvency cases. He said employers should be made to foot some of the bill, claiming Mr Reith was asking workers to pay for employers' losses. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
