If you work a 10 or 12-hour shift and get sick, it is Australian business practice to only pay you for 7.6 hours. This has been the way the law has been interpreted due to an uncertainty in the Fair Work Act, because a workday is normally 7.6 hours. 

 

Luke Grant is joined by Nicholas Marouchak, Director at MKI Legal, to discuss a recent court case that saw two Tasmanian shift workers, who normally work 12-hour shifts, launching legal proceedings saying this was unfair - and won.

 

The game-changing full Federal Court decision on 21 August 2019 has stated that shift workers should get paid for their full shift hours if they are sick. 

 

Unless this decision is overturned by the High Court on appeal, Mr Marouchak warns it won’t take long before sectors with similarly long shifts, like mining and health workers, will be docked pay for being sick.

Listen to the full show podcast with Luke Grant filling in for Michael Mclaren

Luke is joined by Ian Markos, CEO of Master Builders Association - South Australia, about militant members of the CFMEU South Australian branch invading building sites to provoke confrontations while wearing GoPro cameras.

 

“These are all good blokes who are just trying to get some actual work done and they’ve got these guys turning up with lapel cameras trying to rile them up,” says Mr Markos.

Listen to the full show podcast with Luke Grant filling in for Michael Mclaren

Luke Grant is joined by Dr Keith Suter, Managing Director of the Global Directions Think Tank, to get his opinion on the arrest in China of Australian writer Yan Hengjun… who has been formally charged with allegations of spying.

In a strongly worded statement, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne hit out at Beijing yesterday saying Australia was “very concerned and disappointed” by the former Sydney-based writer’s arrest and continued detention.

Jonathon Russell, National public affairs manager for Engineers Australia, joins Luke Grant to talk about the lack of building regulation than allows banned engineers from other states to operate in NSW.

 

Appearing at the parliamentary inquiry into building regulation, Mr Russell told the inquiry that anybody could set up as an engineer in NSW, due to a lack of registration for the profession.

 

“If people are struck off in those states the natural flow for those people is south and north,” he said.

Listen to the full show podcast with Luke Grant filling in Michael Mclaren

Chris Uhlmann, 9 News Political Editor, joins Luke Grant to discuss his article in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald regarding his opinion piece Australian Universities reliance on Chinese students. 

 

He writes, ‘universities have compromised academic standards and are graduating students who can’t read, write or speak English to a high school level in order to stuff as many as possible on the books. Should we have a post-graduation audit of language skills to test this proposition?’.

Read Chris Uhlmann’s entire article…

https://www.smh.com.au/national/instead-of-floating-the-white-australia-bogey-let-s-be-honest-about-chinese-influence-20190825-p52kkb.html

Brad Norrington, Associate editor at The Australian joins Luke Grant to report on day 1 of the corruption inquiry into NSW Labor donations which opened to sensational claims of an Aldi bags filled with $100,000 cash & the tragedy of a key witness who taking his own life rather than give evidence.

Listen to the full show podcast with Luke Grant filling in for Michael Mclaren