Labor has pledged its support for apprentice and trainee training by Fair Work Australia, which could eliminate the concept of pay based on seniority.
It is hoped that the decision, to support wages based on competency rather than years in training, will attract older people into trades facing severe skills shortages.
Fair Work Australia is currently considering at what level to set minimum wages for some of Australia’s lowest paid workers.
Swan targets 35% company tax rate
Wayne Swan has said that he may take on a key Henry Tax Review recommendation and lower the company tax rate to 25 cents in the dollar.
The Federal Treasurer said that Australia currently doesn’t “have the revenues” to cut the tax rate for small businesses beyond the one percentage point reduction to 29% in 2012-13. However, he said that the 25% rate was an “objective” to work towards.
Latest Facebook legal bid denied
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have failed in their latest legal challenge to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who they claim stole the idea for the social networking site from them.
A Federal appeals court in the US has rejected a request to review the case. The Winklevoss twins agreed a $65 million settlement with Facebook in 2008, but have since claimed they are owed more.
Overnight
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 47.38 points to 12,548. The Australian dollar was up to 105.86 US cents.
COMMENTS
SmartCompany is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while it is being reviewed, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.