State defies watchdog on job losses.   
Josh Gordon
June 6, 2012


THE Baillieu government has spent tens of thousands of dollars on legal fees defying an order by the industrial umpire to hand over key documents detailing public sector job losses.   

Fair Work Australia had given the government to 10am yesterday to produce crucial documents revealing how the terminating of 4200 public sector positions would be spread across 11 public sector departments.

The order was made ahead of talks to resolve a long-running pay battle with the Community and Public Sector Union, which had successfully argued the documents were a key part of the government case and should be available for scrutiny.


But in a last-minute scramble, government lawyers emailed Fair Work asking for ''a considerable amount more time'' to further build a legal case. The email reveals the government will once again attempt to argue that the documents should be immune from scrutiny because they are not in the public interest.

It said departmental staff, nine lawyers, a senior counsel and a junior counsel had already spent a ''considerable amount of time'' on the issue, asking that the deadline be extended for another three weeks until June 28 to build its legal case. That suggests the taxpayer-funded legal bill is already considerable, potentially costing tens of thousands of dollars.   

When pressed about his government's decision not to comply with the order, Premier Ted Baillieu yesterday said the government was ''working our way through the documents'', but refused to go into any detail.

''Suffice to say we are seeking an extension from Fair Work and we believe that is the appropriate course,'' Mr Baillieu said.

Fair Work's reaction to the request for a delay yesterday evening remained unclear, with both sides locked in talks. But lawyers for the Community and Public Sector Union argued that the government's request should be rejected. It said the government appeared to want more time to build a legal case to argue the documents were not in the public interest, which was not a valid reason to withhold the information.

Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews accused the government of attempting to cover up evidence that its cuts would hurt key services.   

''We all understand why Mr Baillieu won't hand over these documents, why he will go to extraordinary lengths, and quite extraordinary expense of taxpayers' money to keep these documents secret … because they put the lie to the claim that these cut-backs don't affect frontline services,'' he said.   

Ministers have so far refused to discuss how the government's ''sustainable government initiative'' - involving the loss of 4200 jobs - will affect individual departments.   

But during a previous Fair Work hearing, Department of Treasury and Finance deputy secretary Laurinda Gardner said ''all departments got advice from government about the impact of the budget update on their department'' when public sector job losses were announced last year.

The union successfully argued that job loss information was central to its wage negotiations with the government, which is refusing to grant rises of about 2.5 per cent unless offset by productivity improvements.

CPSU Victorian secretary Karen Batt said the government went to the 2010 election on a platform of transparent government while promising there would be no public sector job losses. ''Now 4200 people are going to lose their jobs but the government won't tell us who or why,'' she said.   

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/state-defies-watchdog-on-job-losses-20120605-1zuap.html#ixzz1wxPgRM60

It will take fairwork 3 years to get around to doing anything anyway, by then there could be a change of government.