Apology to Andrew Crakanthorp

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Published: Thursday, 18 September 2014 12:30

In the August issue of depaNews we exposed management at Wagga Wagga City Council for their failure to support an employee with secondary cancer looking for additional sick leave. He was our delegate, by coincidence, and the article made those managers named appear heartless, mean-spirited and disinterested in the welfare of their employees in need.

We specifically identified Mr Crakanthorp as being one of those responsible for rejecting a reasonable application, consistent with the sentiment and provisions of the State Award allowing a discretion to provide additional sick leave.

We asserted that Mr Crakanthorp responded to an enquiry whether the Council would be sending flowers to the employee in hospital for their surgery, by saying “aaah, it’s just the bloody precedent”. This may have been read as suggesting Mr C was scared of exercising a discretion, unimaginative and fearful.

Mr Crakanthorp was also identified as a member of the LGPA Board which resolved to oppose the introduction into the 2014 Award of half pay sick leave for the chronically ill or injured. This made him look like he lacked compassion and was disinterested in the welfare of employees outside the boundaries of his own Council as well.

We have been contacted about this article and the accuracy of our reporting.

We apologise unreservedly for spelling Andrew’s name incorrectly.

It’s not Krakanthorp, it’s Crakanthorp.

Local Government Poseurs Association still frightened of the new State Award

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Published: Thursday, 18 September 2014 12:30

Some of the LGPA Board and CEO (GAICD)

One of the findings of the Independent Review Panel in the report in October 2013 was to reject the submissions of the inaccurate, dilettantish, fanciful and paranoid that the “current Local Government Award lacks flexibility, focuses on skills at the expense of other attributes of staff, and builds in excessive labour costs for some activities, especially where 'out-of-hours' work is involved.”

The panel is not convinced that the award is as costly and inflexible as some believe, and believes that further efficiency and productivity gains can and should be made through negotiation… There should also be opportunities for some increased flexibility to address specific skill shortages.

Thus the award should continue to evolve through negotiation to address the changing circumstances of councils and their employees, and the needs of communities. Local government needs a system of industrial relations that will support an efficient and productive sector that can adapt to meet future challenges. In turn, this requires a climate of trust and cooperation amongst employer and employee organisations.

A climate of trust and cooperation between the employer organisation (something which they are not) and employee organisations (and they’re not that either) is something that the Local Government Poseurs Association can’t contemplate. This was a recommendation LGPA didn’t embrace, preferring to reiterate their view about the mysterious third force of general managers and HR professionals (sic) needing to be in negotiations.

But if it’s about trust and cooperation, they don’t have the pre-requisites.

depaNews publicised their views in July and now they’ve done it again. In a letter to Keith Rhoades, President of LGNSW (they got the address wrong but at least spelled his name right this time) LGPA President Paul Bennett complained “the absence of direct involvement by the professional leaders in the negotiations themselves, has meant we believe the significant negative consequences the award changes may not have been fully contemplated” (we think we know what he meant) and “the new State Award will make sustainability even harder to achieve, if not impossible.” Poor Paul believes that the award creates an “untenable position”. Professional leaders, indeed.

And, in case his letter was insufficiently melodramatic and hysterical, he was joined by CEO Annalisa Haskell to write to the Minister for Local Government Paul Toole (described as Paul Tool, in their publication and on their site) raising “a potentially significant impediment” to his reform commitment and calling on the NSW State Government “to do everything possible to assist councils in having unfettered access to the Federal Award system for commercial undertakings.”

LGPA in both letters says their views “are expressed purely out of our unwavering commitment to assist the government” but, despite their attempted seduction of other professionals and their boast to be “the peak body for all local government professional in the state”, they are really the GM/finance/corporate services/careerists and aspirants’ group.

But reform initiatives advocated by the highest paid employees which victimise and punish the lowest paid employees in the industry only make them look self-seeking, unimaginative and hypocritical.

“Less people with pencils and more people digging up roads”

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Published: Thursday, 18 September 2014 12:29

It’s hard to believe that when the NSW Premier Mike Baird and Local Government Minister Paul Toole last week launched their response to the authoritative, scholarly and compelling recommendations of the Independent Review Panel, the best the Premier could say was “less people picking up pencils and more people digging up roads”.

What a bizarre, old-fashioned and primitive understanding of local government the State Government must have. They can call it “Fit for the Future”, but they need to be realistic about both the past and the present first.

When did you last see a pencil? Some tradespeople, certainly, but if the Government anticipates that it’s going to create more financially sustainable councils providing better services to their communities, identifying the few people who may use pencils, and getting rid of them, won’t help.

Pencils have been around for centuries. They lived alongside quilled pens and both quilled pens and pencils will be hard to find in any Council office. What on earth did they mean? Fewer “pen pushers” perhaps, or less colouring in, the closing down of childcare and sending the kids out on the road to dig it up, it’s hard to tell. Virtually everyone and everything is computerised today, even in the most financially unsustainable, smallest and most primitive of local government area.

And as a response to such a carefully drafted series of documents and recommendations as those produced by the Independent Review Panel, everyone is entitled to feel disappointed.

Digging up roads? Surely the point of better services is not just digging up roads, but maintaining them? Who writes this drivel anyway? Poor language and grammar skills, poor imagery, poor execution. It’s hard to get good help.

But nevertheless, on 10 September the Government did announce its strategy of inducing/bribing councils to embrace, voluntarily, the recommendations to merge, amalgamate, remain unchanged or perish made by the Independent Review Panel almost 2 years ago. On council boundaries, the recommendations of the Panel leave only 32 of the State’s 152 councils with the recommendation of “no change”.

A number of documents have been published – repetitive and overlapping but with summary documents that make easy reading and which neatly and colourfully identify the inducements offered -$258 million to help councils which decide to merge to make the transition; $13 million to  local transition committees to provide some comfort to elected representatives wondering about the continuing relevance; $5.3 million to get new regional Joint Organisations up and running; $4 million to help small councils (fewer than 10,000 residents) develop “innovative ways of working” and let’s hope that doesn’t just mean getting rid of pencils; and up to $600 million in potential savings in cheaper finance for councils that make the grade of being “Fit for the Future” to invest in local infrastructure.

No chance with all that cash available that the Government will be accused of offering insufficient bribes. There will also be expert assistance provided to help merging councils, regional relationship managers from the Office of Local Government and facilitators to help councils begin discussions about how to merge.

And access to a team of technical experts to help councils prepare their Fit for the Future proposals which need to be filed by 30 June 2015.

All the information you need to know, the 32 Councils without recommended change to boundaries, the “Blueprint” for the future, the “roadmap for Stronger, Smarter Councils” and the “roadmap for intergovernmental collaboration in NSW” for joint organisations is all on the website – www.fitforthefuture.nsw.gov.au

It’s all about financial sustainability, roads and road maps. That must be why their concerns about infrastructure never mention rail.

What Penrith did next

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Published: Thursday, 28 August 2014 11:59

There are some fundamental problems at Penrith about their understanding of the State Award. Last month we reported on their lack of support for flexible working arrangements and working from home and a whole range of other things that made it hard for employees to balance family and work responsibilities - notwithstanding the commitment of the parties to the State Award for councils to “ensure and facilitate flexibility for work and family responsibilities”.

Now it’s clear they don’t understand their obligations in restructuring. A restructure has been announced of the Development Services Department and, while the report to the Consultative Committee about the proposal contained the advice that correspondence had been sent to depa, it hadn’t.

Clause 39 of the Award requires a range of things to be done by Council in circumstances like this - including advising the employees affected “and the union/s to which they belong” but the advice wasn’t sent to the union at all.
 
It may have simply been a mistake for which they should apologise but instead we get responses like the “DEPA delegate was advised well prior to the JCC” when everyone else in the world knows the Award requires notification to the union’s office and not the local delegate and, “I believe you may have been on leave at this time as well” as if a union official being on leave removes their obligation under the Award. We wrote a comprehensive letter about their failures to the GM seeking their assurance that they do understand the notification obligations and received a response back from the Executive Manager Corporate stating:

I can confirm that Council is fully aware and understands the notification requirements under clause 39 of the Local Government State Award 2014.

This is all well and good but what we needed from the Council was a clear and explicit acknowledgement that the notification goes to the union office.

The Council has form here as well, having failed in 2012 to notify the union office but then, having been helpfully advised they should do so, putting the restructure on hold until such time as proper consultation had occurred.
 
The Council at least agreed to delay the implementation date to attend to their obligations.

The story will be continued.

And someone thought it was smart, in an unrelated matter, to start suggesting to BPB accredited employees that they should spend their own money to join AIBS so that the Council gets the discount rate in attending any training.
 
The Award requires the Council to “pay the reasonable costs associated with obtaining and/or maintaining such accreditation, including the cost of accreditation fees and compulsory continued professional development training/course fees” and “grant paid leave to attend course requirements”. So the idea that employees should pay something to get the Council a discount on their obligations under the Award is unacceptable.

Apparently they do this every year – I bet they won’t next year.

More next month.

What's the score at Shoalhaven?

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Published: Thursday, 28 August 2014 11:57

Since our comprehensive coverage of the restructuring fiasco at Shoalhaven last month there have been some positive developments.

We reported that the Council had agreed to review the situation of those employees who they had asked to forfeit their right to a car as a condition of employment as part of a promotion, and two of our members have had their cars returned.

We also reported that the Council was considering requests for re-evaluation and they are now in the process of re-evaluating positions with staff responsibilities which, we reckon, should always have been 3/3 under the Award.

No apologies though, to the employees concerned.

Wagga Wagga stumbles with dangerous precedents

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Published: Thursday, 28 August 2014 11:35

One of the agreed changes in the 2014 Award was to encourage a more sympathetic approach when employees run out of sick leave. Previous Awards empowered Councils to exercise a discretion and provide more sick leave for employees (with more than ten years’ service) who, for reasons of bad health, disease or injury, needed additional sick leave. A response, to the “but for the grace of whatever, go I”.

The 2014 Award, with a variety of other improvements in the area of compassion and caring, reduced that ten-year requirement to five. Employees with chronic illness or injury are now getting more support under the Award than they ever have. An employee with a disease that threatens to end their life doesn’t need their head clouded worrying about running out of sick leave.

But all this seems to have missed Wagga Wagga. Too many concerns about establishing dangerous caring precedents.

Last year our delegate at Wagga Wagga, Stephen Cook, had surgery and chemotherapy for bowel cancer. Something he will happily tell you was a real bummer.
 
He was comforted by colleagues at work and the Mayor, Councillor Rod Kendall told him “I’d like to think we would always look after you.”

This year they discovered secondary cancers in his lung and scheduled surgery with an uncertain result and prognosis.

Before his surgery, Stephen asked the Council to exercise their discretion under the Award to provide him with additional sick leave to cover the surgery and, if he needed it, whatever may follow.
 
GM Phil Pinyon, Director Planning and Regulatory Services Andrew Krakanthorp and the HR Manager Laurie Flack thought long and hard – this really tested both their imaginations and their compassion. They were worried about establishing dangerous precedents. Like, caring and supporting.

Pinyon and Krakanthorp decided that Stephen had long service leave and annual leave credits, so he could use that first. He needed to exhaust his long service leave and run his annual leave down to eight weeks first, which would cover his surgery and recovery and most of any subsequent chemo - and then the Council would provide him with four weeks sick leave.
 
Effectively, they offered nothing.

A caring employer would be providing whatever it took to ensure that the employee could face the challenge without having to worry about whether they would have enough sick leave or not. The Mayor clearly understood that.

We emailed GM Phil Pinyon supporting Stephen’s request and pointing out that the Award doesn’t make any suggestion that employees need to work down leave they have accumulated for other purposes, before Council can exercise their discretion to provide additional sick leave.

The GM responded “I don’t intend to rise to your provocations or respond to your inaccurate presumptions and comments” and in his response to Stephen said:

It is unfortunate that Ian Robertson chose to become involved in such a confrontational and provocative way yesterday. Despite Ian’s approach and certainly not because of it, I have revised Council’s formal response to you which was previously provided by way of Andrew’s email to you dated 9th July.

You can read our exchange here and decide for yourself whether it was confrontational or provocative. Or just right.
 
But, despite the GM’s assurances, or for whatever other reason, the GM and the Director had thought again and decided that Stephen didn’t have to use all of his long service leave up, only down to a balance of four weeks. Then, when annual leave is down to eight, the Council would provide four weeks additional sick leave.
 
Again that meant that even though we didn’t have to use up all his long service leave, his annual leave and long service leave would cover most of his anticipated surgery and recuperation time. Again, offering nothing.

Annual leave and long service leave are provided to give people a break from the pressures and rigours of work, time for rest and recuperation so you can return to work recharged. Sick leave is there for when you’re sick.
 
Chemotherapy is something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy. From his last experience, Stephen reckons he will need three days sick leave per treatment, so despite the Council knocking back his application for additional leave before the surgery, he tried again.

And again, the application was rejected.

That means that the 36 or so days of leave Stephen will need for his chemotherapy will all come out of his long service leave and annual leave and he won’t get down to the minimum level required by the GM Phil Pinyon and his team to trigger the four weeks sick leave they think is sufficient to offer.

He really needs to get sicker for the Council’s extra sick leave to apply. Nice.

When asked by staff to send flowers while Stephen was in hospital, Krakanthorp said, “aaah, it’s just the bloody precedent”.
 
Wagga Wagga’s website boasts of their “excellent reputation”, their “high ethical standards” their commitment to “deal fairly, honestly and ethically” but they have refused to do what is intended by the Award, to exercise their discretion and provide additional sick leave to someone seriously in need of it.

So, GM Phil Pinion expresses his best wishes, his Group Manager Andrew Krakanthorp does too but neither of them thought it appropriate to do what others would do and provide the additional sick leave.

A couple of real bustards

Krakanthorp is also a member of the LGPA Board that resolved to oppose the provision in the 2014 Award to provide half pay sick leave for the chronically ill or injured who need it. Do you see a pattern emerging here?

If the Mayor still believes he’d like to think the Council would always look after Stephen, he had better share the compassion with the GM and Director.

Shock, horror, more bad news on the quality of private certifiers

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Published: Thursday, 31 July 2014 09:59

The shortcomings of the private certification system continue.

The ACT Auditor-General Maxine Cooper has conducted an investigation into development assessments and made observations about “potentially improper” relationships between builders and certifiers. Oh no, another “we told you so” moment.

“Dr Cooper has called for more auditing of certifiers’ decisions, more training for certifiers and a public register of demerit points against them”, according to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald by authoritative local government editor Harvey Grennan on 22 July. The Herald reports that the Auditor-General’s office conducted seven case studies and “found that two dwellings should have been subject to a full development application and three others gave rise to consideration of disciplinary action against certifiers.”

Dr Cooper criticised the inadequacy of penalties against certifiers and prominent authority on construction liability and certification, Kim Lovegrove, Melbourne solicitor and partner in a building and planning law firm Lovegrove Smith and Cotton, observed that “the Auditor-General has hit on a number of serious issues which extend beyond ACT borders.”

“Last year my colleague Stephen Smith called for a number of reforms to private certification more generally, including not only mandatory auditing and continuing professional development for certifiers, independent peer review, more oversight powers and higher penalties but also a regulated floor on certifier fees to ensure these cannot drop to a level which would compromise professional standards”, Professor Lovegrove said.

The Herald observes “the Canberra findings mirror some of those of the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal in a draft report on local government compliance and enforcement released in May. This found inadequate penalties being imposed. Disciplinary action was taken against only 1% of all accredited certifiers and 0.1% received more than a fine and a reprimand. No action was taken on 72% of all complaints.”

There have been no adverse findings against accredited council employees.

An early favourite for our 2014 HR Award

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Published: Thursday, 31 July 2014 09:59

Like finding a Japanese soldier on some obscure island in the Pacific, who still thinks he’s fighting the Second World War, we have found a council that looks like it didn’t properly grade its senior health and building surveyors (as they used to be known in the Health Surveyors State Award) way back in 1992.

Everywhere else (until we discovered Taree and Hastings a couple of years ago and fixed them) has had seniors as band 3 level 3 since 1992. So how does it happen that Shoalhaven have them at 3/2?

The systemic and chronic rorting of job evaluation at Shoalhaven was exposed in their current restructure. This was a process where, not only did they breach their obligations under the State Award to advise employees affected and the union to which they belong, but it was only when they tried to jam existing “seniors” into even bigger jobs, with even more staff, and still at 3/2 and no more money that the whole questionable system started to unwind.

We filed an industrial dispute which has been before the Commission on five occasions. On the first occasion the USU and the LGEA wanted to intervene because they had concerns about the process as well and this was contested by the Council - asserting that this was really only about the evaluation of one position when the dispute notification made it abundantly clear it was about much, much more. They lost that argument. We welcome the other unions. That’s 1 nil.

In the dispute proceedings Council agreed to re-evaluate the team leader jobs using 00Soft (the old Wyatt) and we then discovered they were using version 19, the 1993 version that was made obsolete when it was superseded by version 20 in 1995. Version 20 provides more reliable evaluation consistent with the skill descriptors in the Award – particularly in the professional area. As part of the dispute, despite their original defence of the superseded obsolete system, the Council has agreed to transition to version 20 from 1 January 2015. That’s 2 nil.

Council was adamant they had properly evaluated these positions (as a general rule, councils never admit to rorting or fiddling the system) but the re-evaluation found that the positions really were 3/3. Council then had to agree that the positions would be 3/3 because it was their idea that we’d sit down and go through the evaluation. That’s 3 nil.

The upgrading led to a redundancy for one of our long-standing members John Britton (well done John and enjoy your retirement) and may well provide another. I think we can count that as 4 nil.

Then two members were offered the Team Leader positions but under the condition that access to a leaseback car would be “discretionary” and not a continuation of the condition of employment cars they had enjoyed in their current positions. This was subsequently claimed to have been a mistake, but the realisation this was a mistake was very slow in coming and while they were wondering whether it was a whether it wasn’t, they kept asserting locally that they are entitled to do this. That’s 5 nil.

And we discovered other employees who had a car as a condition of employment, when offered promotional positions, have been asked to sign away their condition of employment car for a car that can be removed with six months’ notice.

Group Director Tim Fletcher and a movable feast of HR functionaries are up to their eyeballs in this fiasco. GM Russ Pigg delegates things down the organisation so, ironically at least, he can devote some time to going along and present at a convention of the Local Government Poseurs Association about “Transformational Change – The Shoalhaven Story”. Oh Russ, you are such a wag! You have to admire self-deprecating humour. That’s a story that should be R rated.

The Council has a pay policy which prevents employees, concerned about the accuracy of the evaluation of their position, asking for the position to be re-evaluated unless there have been “significant changes” to the position. This sort of provision sets the rorted level in concrete. But on the last occasion this was argued out in the Commission, the Council agreed to re-evaluate positions of those members who wanted their positions re- valuated given the new understanding about the appropriate level for Team Leader positions. That’s 6 nil.

They also agreed to provide a list of those employees who may have been asked to sign a letter of offer including a discretionary car - something that they had refused to do before. So, that’s 7 nil.

And on every single issue, the Council dawdles, obfuscates and then precious and sensitive people in management get distressed about the tone of emails the union sends to its members. Poor little loves.

In particular, they didn’t like us saying this:

• rorting the job evaluation system to keep positions out of 3/3

• we’ve sprung them and remedied the issue

• chronic rorting of job evaluation, trying to forcibly redeploy people into positions without giving the opportunity of taking a redundancy

• for trying to cheat (two members’ names deleted) out of their rights to a car and being sprung

• and robbing who knows how many people of their rights to a condition of employment car in taking another promotional position.

Funny, they never objected on any of the occasions when precisely that sort of language was used in the Commission. What do you think? If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

Shoalhaven has made itself an unbackable favourite. The award can sit alongside the GM’s Certificate of Appreciation from LGPA for his “Transformational Change- The Shoalhaven Story” presentation.

What’s your Council doing about the Award’s health and well-being provision?

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Published: Thursday, 31 July 2014 09:59

Clause 24 Health and Wellbeing is a new provision that apart from providing encouragement to councils to develop workplace health and/or wellbeing programs, allows councils to agree to provide up to 2 days paid leave each calendar year from employees’ accrued sick leave to participate in a health and/or well-being activity.

This is subject to some considerations but the critical issue is that there is a discretion for each Council to opt in, or opt out of the option, to provide the additional leave.

What’s your Council doing? This was one of our claims and we would like to keep a record of which Council is providing this as an option as part of its commitment to looking after the health and well-being of its staff - and those councils deciding to do otherwise.

We’ve already seen one draft policy from Penrith (Penrith just can’t seem to do the right thing at all these days) which proposes to restrict the provision to “medical appointments or medical treatments/screenings by medical/health practitioner”. This frustrates the intention of the clause and directs it away from fitness, healthy lifestyle activities, general exercise programs and their establishment with a trainer or in a gym and a whole range of other activities that will contribute to the well-being of an employee.

Penrith won’t be the only Council trying this on (let’s hope the employee representatives on the Consultative Committee rejects this) and we would like to know who and which Council is trying to frustrate the intention of this clause. Is it just indolent or lazy HR people or others higher up?

Please let us know. Would also like to know those councils which are embracing it and trying to do the right thing by their staff. It’s not all about bad news.

It’s not just the State Award that is committed to making councils provide family friendly and flexible work

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Published: Thursday, 31 July 2014 10:00

The 2014 State Award provides two significant improvements for working parents that coincide with publication by the Australian Human Rights Commission of their Supporting Working Parents: Pregnancy and Return to Work National Review.

On a weekly basis we provide advice to members dealing with councils reluctant to embrace the flexibility provided in the Award for parents returning to work - particularly mothers. It seems extraordinary that we would need to do so but two improvements in the 2014 Award will make it harder for councils to ignore their obligations.

First, the 2010 Award acknowledged the intention of the parties to the Award to “ensure flexibility for work and family responsibilities” but at many councils this didn’t happen. The 2014 Award has taken this commitment further with the addition of two simple words, with the Award now requiring that they facilitate these arrangements as well. The Award now commits the parties to the Award to “ensure and facilitate the flexibility for work and family responsibilities”, so unsympathetic, unsupportive or even hostile Councils really will have to do something.

Second, clause 22 Flexibility for Work and Family Responsibilities now provides this new wording:

“In recognition of the commitment to provide flexibility for work and family responsibilities and the need to retain skills and experience within the industry, employers are encouraged to develop and promote flexible work and leave arrangements to enable their employees to better manage their work and family responsibilities”.

We are already familiar with snide observations from supervisors and managers about accommodating what they see to be unrealistic or unreasonable requests; negativity from the same managers or supervisors when the Council’s own policy document encourages “your positive attitude towards flexible work arrangements is essential”; the reliance on obsolete policies which pre-date the Fair Work Act and its absolute requirements to respond positively to flexible working arrangements; dawdling and ignoring reasonable timeframes; expecting child care arrangements are easily found and almost instantly changed; smug reliance on assertions that the flexible working hours policy doesn’t operate concurrently with the working from home policy (even though neither policy specifies this); ignorant assertions that flexible arrangements are not available for “long-term dependent care” when the policy doesn’t mention childcare or parental responsibilities but focuses only on caring for the ill or injured - and where the Fair Work Act and the Award require otherwise; responding to a request by proposing a 50% reduction in working hours instead, with the loss of the leaseback car; arguing that working from home arrangements are not there to accommodate childcare responsibilities even though other employees at work are doing precisely that; and demanding special requirements for working parents to keep appropriate credits in their flexitime, when that doesn’t apply to people who aren’t parents; and, part-time working arrangements that require a capacity, without reasonable notice, to be available for weekend work.

And all of this while the Council boasts its commitment to doing the right thing. A glossy booklet with the General Manager smiling with the caption “A great place to work …” that promises flexibility in attracting and retaining quality staff and flexible work environments that help all staff to balance their work, family and other responsibilities, but which are clearly more honoured in their breach than their observation. And so far, we’re only talking about Penrith.

We will tell you more about Penrith in subsequent issues as we move them into 2014.

While Australia falls well below the arrangements for employing women with young children in OECD countries, less attention has been paid to making employers provide more flexible arrangements for working parents. The Australian Human Rights Commission’s Report found that much needs to be done to make workplaces more welcoming for mothers and fathers returning from parental leave, and to prevent discrimination.

The Report found that 49% of mothers had experienced discrimination during pregnancy, parental leave and their return to work, 32% suffered discrimination requesting or taking parental leave and 34% in dealing with their family responsibilities. These figures seem consistent with our experience.

In addition to the protections available in the State Award, progressive National Employment Standards are incorporated in clause 21F Parental Leave (General) and 21G Requests for Flexible Working Arrangements. Some councils still don’t understand this.

The Report also found amongst employers “confusion and uncertainty about their legal obligations, and about employee rights”. We are always happy to help the confused and the uncertain.

If you are having issues of discrimination at work because of your family responsibilities, let us know.

And if you are making a request for flexible working arrangements, here is a link to your rights through the State Award and the Fair Work Act 2009.