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Earlier this month we labelled a proposed Victorian law a 'shocker'. We said that we were preparing a detailed analysis which we have now done. A short summary is here.

The Victorian Labour Hire Licensing Bill is a 'shocker' because it strips away basic access to justice to which everyone in the community should be entitled. More...

If you didn't read it, do so. It's the ABC's report of a memo sent by the ATO to its staff. The memo tells ATO staff to report on other staff who spend too much time eating, reading the paper at work or 'fudging' their work hours. We had to ask ourselves on reading the report, 'in what century is the ATO operating? The 1800s?'

Karl Marx would rightly call ATO staff 'wage slaves.'  Charles Dickens would describe their existence as downtrodden. Frankly, what a horrid place in which to work! The ATO must be a 'paper pushing, time pressure factory'. Forget results! Dump quality! Just do your hours! But for us it suddenly explains a lot.  More...

The Turnbull government is proposing new legislation that would give the ATO the power to report (alleged) small business debts to credit rating agencies.

We absolutely oppose this, as reported in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald this week.

We want this Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax 3 Transparency) Bill 2018: Transparency of taxation debts withdrawn. It has nothing to do with transparency. It is a new grab for power by the ATO.  More...

The Australian Taxation Office pretty consistently claims that small business people owe around 60 per cent of tax debts, amounting to some $12 billion or more a year. This figure is frequently trotted out to portray small business people as tax dodgers and the ATO as the 'defender' of the community. Well, maybe!

There's no doubt that lots of small business people owe lots of tax. But let's get fact-driven. In the UK, campaigners claiming that massive tax dodging was occurring have been embarrassed when analysis revealed that the actual debt was less than a third of that claimed.  More...

The Victorian government is looking to push its new Labour Hire Licensing Bill through Parliament, starting this week. The Bill is a legislative scam pretending to do one thing, but in reality will do something else—namely, open new doors to corruption in Victoria.

The Bill is supposedly a (long overdue) response to the exposé by the ABC's Four Corners programme on 4 May 2015 about the exploitation of migrant workers on some Australian farms. What Four Corners exposed was illegal migrants, working below legal pay rates and organized through some small, illegal 'labour hire' businesses.  More...

I'm afraid we're seeing a big political swing against freedom in the workplace. The most obvious driver of this agenda is the Australian Council of Trade Unions.

Essentially, what unions want are changes to the Fair Work Act to force businesses to do deals with unions. The FWA was created by the Rudd Labor government in 2009. But it has not worked to the advantage of the unions in the way unions had expected. The key to union/business deals is that unions offer businesses corrupt deals that either (a) reduce workers' wages and/or (b) make life more difficult for the businesses' competitors. Businesses pay money to unions for this 'service'. More...

Technology is crushing traditional jobs. The command-and-control factory is being replaced by robots. Banks are rapidly removing pen-pusher jobs by the tens of thousands!!! For those with an economic bent, the Milton Friedman-type assumptions about how an economy operates are dead!

What’s taking over is the ‘gig’ economy. But what is it?  It’s pretty simple really.  More...

In the historic sector of Lisbon, Portugal, nestled quietly next to the imposing 13th Century Lisbon Cathedral is a nondescript block of a building. It houses the Museum of Aljube – Resistance and Freedom. For the naive tourist who wanders in from the intriguing, cobbled alleyways of Lisbon and not familiar with the more recent history of Portugal, the museum is a moving shake-up. The museum records the struggle against the dictatorship that governed Portugal from 1926 to 1974. This is recent history! The museum building itself housed the dictatorship’s secret police. As you move through rooms you find yourself standing in torture cells, places where murder was committed by the state in the name of the state.  More...

2017 was a hugely busy and transformational year for Self-Employed Australia on many important fronts.

Since forming in 2000 under the name Independent Contractors Australia, we have focused on one thing—advocacy for the rights of self-employed Australians. In this respect, we have had major successes even though we are entirely a volunteer group. More...

Yes, we have to feel sorry these days for employees who are forced to attend the staff Xmas party. All the merriment has changed.

First, employees have to undergo HR training and briefings on how to behave or not behave. Hugs are banned. Be careful who you smile at and how! No sitting on Santa’s lap. Conversations and greetings must be religiously diversified and non-judgmental. Champagne is replaced with sparkling non-alcoholic lolly water. Sorry, no jokes! More...