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Autumn 2006

Howard Breaks Sick Leave Promise

John Howard and Kevin Andrews have broken their promise that under their new industrial relations laws Australian workers would not be required to provide a medical certificate from a doctor each time they claimed a single day of sick leave.

When unions raised concerns about the new sick leave rules in the Government's IR laws in November last year the Prime Minister and Workplace Minister Kevin Andrews accused the ACTU of lying.

In November 2005 Mr. Andrews said in Federal Parliament, "... the ALP and ACTU have been running another inaccurate scare campaign, arguing that under the [Work Choices new IR laws] bill employees must provide a separate medical certificate for every day that they take off on sick leave. That is absolutely wrong."

On the same day Mr. Howard told SKY News, "Labor is putting around the line that you've got to get a doctor's certificate every day you are off sick, not true."

But recently it has been revealed that the Workplace Minister Kevin Andrews' own Department has become one of the first employers in the country to use punitive new powers under the Government's IR laws to insist that workers in his own Department provide a medical certificate for every single day of sick leave they take.

A leaked Department memo has revealed that as of Monday the policy in Kevin Andrews' Department of Employment and Workplace Relations 'will require that a medical certificate be produced [by employees] for all sick leave absences of one day or more'...and that 'this is a blanket requirement' for workers on AWA individual contracts.

ACTU Secretary Greg Combet said, "This shows that the Federal Government will do anything to hide the truth about its mean IR laws. Unions warned that the new laws would allow this to happen and now Kevin Andrews in his own Department has proven us right."

"The punitive new sick leave requirement in the Government's industrial relations laws and the use of them in Kevin Andrews' own Department is mean and dishonest. What this proves is that the Government's IR laws will allow employers the right to unilaterally demand medical certificates every single time an employee is absent from work."

"This will increase costs for working families who could now be forced to visit a doctor and pay $40 or $50 every time they or one of their children has even a minor illness."

"Getting to see a doctor at short notice, let alone one that will Bulkbill, is already a nightmare for many families and this will only make it worse."

Source: ACTU