The federal government has rejected Victorian Premier Steve Bracks' proposal to allow the Commonwealth to maintain power over the state's IR system, in return for changes to ensure all of the state's workers are covered by a federal award and the classification of outworkers as ‘employees'.
A spokesperson for federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott says the Minister intends to inform his Victorian counterpart Monica Gould that the proposal is unacceptable, adding "we are not in the business of implementing Labor Party policy".
With the Bracks government lacking the numbers in the Upper House to push through its own legislation, the move paves the way for the federal government to implement its alternative plan to amend Schedule 1A of the Workplace Relations Act.
Importantly for business, the federal government's proposed amendments do not include two of the Bracks's government's more controversial proposals - the re-classfication of outworkers as employees, and measures to crackdown on independent contractor arrangements.
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