THE Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) has welcomed ASIC’s announcement of a raft of measures to strengthen the complaints handling process within financial firms.

ASIC has today announced its intention to require financial companies to supply standardised data on their internal process for handling customer complaints. ASIC has signaled its intention to publish this information, naming the firms and their performance.

AFCA Chief Ombudsman and CEO David Locke welcomed the proposed changes, “Increased transparency is good news” he said.

“It will help firms to continuously improve, and that will be good for the firms and their customers alike.

“We also welcome the idea of requiring firms to provide a standard set of data – this will help companies know how they compare to their competitors and help to inform consumers about the companies they’re dealing with.

“In this digital age, the move by ASIC to require firms to include complaints made on social media platforms, is entirely appropriate” he said.

Noting that ASIC is consulting with industry about the proposed changes, Mr Locke observed the timeliness of the process and the proposed regulatory changes.

“ASIC’s aim to match dispute resolution data with AFCA data will provide a robust and accountable way to make sure the system is fully transparent.”

www.afca.org.au

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MINE WORKER and employer representatives have warned the Queensland Government that uncertainty about the royalty rates it applies to the resources sector is creating job uncertainty.

Queensland Resources Council chief executive Ian Macfarlane and CFMEU Mining and Energy Division Queensland District president Stephen Smyth said the Queensland Government should rule out any increase in royalty rates applying to resource commodities, such as coal, metals and LNG, this week.

“Unemployment in Queensland is rising.  The resources industry, particularly coal, has been creating jobs and paying record royalties to the Government,” Mr Macfarlane and Mr Smyth said in a joint statement.

“Now is not the time to increase taxes on the industry, because increasing taxes creates uncertainty for investors and ultimately that means uncertainty for those men and women working in the resources industry.

“The Palaszczuk Government will receive more than $5 billion in resource royalties this financial year.  That’s a record Budget contribution from our industry.

“Instead of getting credit for generating record royalty revenues and record exports for Queensland, the men and women working in the resources sector are being told by southerners like Bob Brown to abandon their careers and reskill.

“The Queensland Government should give those mine workers, their families and their communities a commitment that it supports the industry and that it rules out increasing taxes and royalties that hurt the industry and force it to review planned investments and employment.”

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THE Federal Opposition’s plan to help victims of wage theft recoup entitlements is a welcome development, but stops short of necessary reforms to ensure super is paid to workers’ accounts at the same time as wages, Industry Super Australia said.

Industry Super Australia chief executive Bernie Dean said the only way to stop the millions of Australians being robbed of their super entitlements every year is for the major parties to commit to changing the law and requiring all employers to pay super at the same time as salary.

“Anything less is a band-aid solution that won’t fix the problem and will see millions of Australians end up worse off at retirement,” Mr Dean said.

New polling conducted by UMR has revealed that Australians overwhelmingly want the major parties to take action on unpaid super at this election, with 89 percent of people polled supporting a law that would require employers to pay super at the same time as salary.

Of those polled, more than half said the issue would influence how they vote at this election. Mr Dean said people’s outrage on unpaid super was justified.

“Super is meant to be guaranteed for everyone, but we’re seeing that it’s not guaranteed at all for about a third of eligible workers,” he said.

“Hardworking Australians rightly expect that the super they are legally entitled to is paid into their account. Instead, rogue employers are ripping of these workers, and because the penalties are lax and enforcement is weak, they are getting away with daylight robbery.”

Mr Dean said the establishment of a new claims jurisdiction to help workers recoup lost entitlements was welcome, but didn’t fix the cause of the problem.

“If the law was changed we wouldn’t need to help workers’ get their super back because employers wouldn’t have been able to steal it in the first place,” he said.

“It’s disappointing the major parties are turning a blind eye to the fact that nearly three million Australians are having close to $6 billion in super entitlements stolen from them every year.

“Politicians are looked after – they have their own special law that guarantees they get paid super at the same time as they get paid their wage. But what about the rest of Australians? It’s a double standard to have one rule for politicians and another for average Australians.”

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THE AUTHORS of a ground breaking study on wage theft have welcomed the Federal Opposition’s policy announcement to give underpaid workers an ‘efficient and effective avenue to reclaim unpaid wages’.

The Labor Party announced today that it would create a new small claims jurisdiction with funding for legal assistance for workers to file wage claims.

Senior law lecturer at the University of NSW (UNSW) Law department, Bassina Farbenblum, and senior law lecturer at University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Law, Laurie Berg, released the Wage Theft in Silence report late last year.

Dr Laurie Berg said their research found that more than half of temporary migrants surveyed were underpaid, but only a small minority were able to reclaim the wages owed to them.

“Our study on wage theft among almost 4,500 temporary migrant workers showed that underpaid migrant workers don’t get their money back and the system is broken,” Dr Berg said.

Ms Farbenblum said there was an entrenched cycle of impunity for wage theft.

“There’s no way to break this cycle unless workers have a quick, cheap and accessible avenue to reclaim the wages they are owed, and can hold employers to account,” she said.

The researchers have encouraged all sides of politics to propose similar measures to the Labor announcement, to assist underpaid workers.

www.uts.edu.au

www.unsw.edu.au

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