Sawmills struggling, laying off staff due to housing slump
Andrew White, the chief executive of the Victorian Forest Products Association, said while the industry had been initially braced for significant supply shortages to meet increased housing demand, they were now struggling to sell their timber.
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The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Labor had a work-from-home plan for the election. Dutton announced his first
Labor considered a policy to protect working-from-home rights before the May federal election but abandoned the push to avoid taking attention from then-opposition leader Peter Dutton's unpopular plan to call public servants back to the office. Two federal sources confirmed to this masthead that the idea of protecting people who work remotely from career penalties was floated within Labor before the election, building on the government's 2023 changes that gave employees a legal right to ask to work from home. The revelation that federal Labor saw the policy as a potential vote-winner comes after Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan pledged to give workers in her state the right to work from home at least two days a week in an attempt to reach frustrated voters before the state election this year. Allan's plan has divided opinion, with business groups saying the proposal is a top-down intervention into workplaces that will frustrate career development and hamper productivity, while tech bosses and unions said working from home was useful. Federal Labor's plan never became written party policy, but would have differed from Allan's because it was intended to focus on protecting against discrimination for people who choose not to be based in an office. The Coalition, under Dutton, announced in early March that it would force public servants, many of whom work from home at least some of the time, to return to the office five days a week. The Liberal leader was forced to backflip on his policy a month later because of its unpopularity. 'The new proposal was no longer needed because of Dutton,' a government source said on the condition of anonymity. Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O'Neil backed Allan's proposal but stopped short of suggesting there was a federal need for new work-from-home laws. 'We do think that given we've got the flexible work rights in the Fair Work Act, it's important to see how those are operating and that they're operating in an effective and fair way,' she said.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Allan's working-from-home push is an affront and a furphy
Premier Jacinta Allan can paint her latest foray into workplace relations any colour she chooses, but there is an overarching image that emerges. That is, this is at best good politics, not good policy. At last weekend's Victorian Labor state conference, Allan unveiled the government's new policy of seeking to enshrine in law a right for workers in the public or the private sector to work from home two days a week where reasonable. It would be the first such policy by a state. Self-evidently, that right could not extend to jobs that need to be performed on-site, such as emergency services. Consultation will be led by the Department of Premier and Cabinet. In spruiking the policy, Allan said it was good for families and the economy. 'If you can do your job from home, we'll make it your right – because we're on your side,' she said. There is no doubt there has been a revolution in working arrangements wrought by COVID-19. The workplace is a much more flexible environment than pre-pandemic, a development that has created opportunities for many people, especially those with caring responsibilities and disabilities. Loading The Australian Bureau of Statistics says about a third of the nation's employees work from home for part of the week. The premier could be seen to be merely acknowledging this trend and seeking to cement it into law. She could also be seen to be grasping at a distraction that will avert critical eyes from the performance of her government amid some controversial cuts as its strained budget position bites. If the plan puts pressure on the Liberals to declare their position with an election due next year, that could only be seen as a bonus. Federal Labor at this year's election was the beneficiary of Peter Dutton's ill-thought-out plan to force public servants back to the office. As The Age reports today, Labor considered new federal laws in this space – as it is entitled to do. The intervention of the Victorian government into the relationship between employer and employee seems more like Dutton's intervention but in the opposite direction. Businesses are not the same, and to bring into law a right to work from home two days a week without regard to the particular circumstances of a business is wrong. As an aside, how was two days arrived at? Allan hasn't said. How the policy would become a reality is not clear either. Victoria referred its powers to regulate private sector workplaces to the federal jurisdiction decades ago. The Age has reported warnings, as has The Australian Financial Review, from legal experts that the proposal would almost certainly fall foul of Section 109 of the Constitution, that is, if state and federal law cover the same area, federal law prevails. If the Victorian parliament enacts work-from-home legislation, this would be ripe for a High Court challenge.
The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
Packaging industry calls for fourth household bin to boost recycling
However, the result of the breakages meant that half of the glass collected in kerbside bins was lost and unable to be recycled. The second problem was that shards of broken glass became embedded in cardboard and paper, and were then sent to the mill for paper recycling where fragments would wind up being ground up, like 'pouring sand' in the machinery. De Wit said on average, for every tonne of paper going into a paper mill from a material recycling facility, 20 kilograms or 2 per cent was glass. The Victorian government started rolling out purple-lidded kerbside bins for glass recycling several years ago, and it is slated to be standard across the state in 2027. However, about 30 councils have called for the state government to ditch purple bins and expand the container deposit scheme instead, citing cost and the issue of where residents would keep the fourth bin. The National Kerbside Collections Roadmap does not state whether there should be a dedicated glass recycling bin but specifies that the colour should be purple, along with red for landfill, yellow for mixed recycling, and green for food and garden organic waste. De Wit also called for the eight different container deposit schemes around Australia to have the same rules, a point made by several attendees, which included some of Australia's biggest consumer companies: Arnott's Biscuits, the Kraft Heinz Company, Lion, PepsiCo, Nestle and Unilever. Asahi group chief executive Amanda Sellers said it was important to increase the number of return points to make it more convenient, and to expand the scheme to include wine and spirits bottles and food-grade packaging. 'Every scheme is different, and that does present some challenges for large and small business alike,' Sellers said. Lisa Rippon-Lee, vice president of public affairs, communications and sustainability for Coca-Cola Europacific Partners, said harmonisation was critical given there were eight schemes and six portals. 'We have 800 to 900 barcodes in Queensland and they all have to be registered through the portal, and that happens six times,' Rippon-Lee said. 'The administrative burden of working with all of those schemes is huge.' Rippon-Lee said improving collection rates would bring down the cost of recycled plastic, which was currently more expensive than virgin plastic. Loading Watt said he would work with the states and territories but could not 'bully or cajole' them. 'It's one of the joys of the federation, and there are some states that are further ahead than others in different parts, but there is a role for the federal government to play that national leadership role,' Watt said.
