FULLERTON HEALTH, in its commitment to improve the lives of communities in which it operates, has donated A$50,000 to the Australian Red Cross Relief and Recovery Fund.

This contribution goes towards assisting efforts to bring relief to residents and neighbourhoods affected by the devasting fires in Australia.

Mr Steven Harvey, managing director of Fullerton Health Australia said, "This humble donation is by far the largest contribution to any fund-raising effort in Fullerton Health Australia's history, and we are very proud that we can support this important appeal.

"The rains in the past few days may have helped, but the devastation from extreme weather is far from over. Our dedicated teams across Australia, many of whom were directly threatened by the fires, are there to help at all times.

"Local fund-raising efforts by our employee groups throughout the country highlight the passion that our employees have for their fellow Australians at their time of need. We stand side by side with our people to help them in any way we can." 

Ho Kuen Loon, group chief executive officer of Fullerton Health, said, "We watched the fires burn with deep concern, and we recognise that our colleagues and patients have been affected by this tragedy. Besides the donation, our primary care facilities in Australia continue to care for our patients and work to keep our communities safe. We must do what we can for the communities in which we operate."

Fullerton Health delivers care through over 550 healthcare facilities and a global network of over 10,000 healthcare providers in nine markets across Asia Pacific. In the last month, Fullerton Health, through its partnership with Stop TB, launched a program to screen 150,000 workers across 250 factories in Indonesia for Tuberculosis this year. Tuberculosis is one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world and is particularly prevalent in Indonesia.

About Fullerton Health

Fullerton Health is a leading integrated health system in the Asia Pacific region. Founded in Singapore in 2010, today the company serves clients through over 550 healthcare facilities and a large global network of healthcare providers across nine markets in Asia Pacific. Fullerton Health's value proposition is the integration of healthcare service offerings with customized management and advisory capabilities, in line with its purpose to deliver affordable and accessible care for all in Asia Pacific. 

http://www.fullertonhealth.com

About Fullerton Health Australia

Established in 2013, Fullerton Health Australia is made up of a number of established businesses that have been delivering health services to more than five million people over the last 20 years including leading occupational healthcare provider Jobfit Health Group, Fullerton Health Medical Centres, Northcare Physio, and Baseline Group.

http://www.fullertonhealth.com.au

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AUSTRALASIA'S largest online auction company and Australia’s largest marina and marine services company have partnered to create a new boat sales platform.

For the first time, boat owners will be able to access a mass market digital sales platform to sell via auction or private treaty, while still having the involvement of an experienced brokerage service. 

The marketplace is set to change the secondhand boat sales industry by giving boat sellers more certainty around the timeliness of the sale of their vessel.  At the same time, confidence around the sales result will be made possible by the power of the platform.  Buyers and sellers will also be able to benefit from d’Albora’s wide range of marine services including berthing, boatyard and repair and maintenance services. 

GraysOnline chief operating officer, Jeff McLean said, “Australian boat owners take on average between 6-12 months to sell their boat. This marketplace will enable a 7 day auction process whilst maintaining d’albora’s brokerage expertise; a transformational leap for private boat owners.”

Matt Walford, d’Albora Marine Boat Sales CEO said, “We’re excited to be aligning with such a highly regarded market leader in Grays and pleased to be adding such a powerful platform to our existing offering”.

About d'Albora Marine

Part of Australia’s leading marina services group, D’Albora Marine provides specialist boat sales services from ten locations spread throughout New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. D’Albora is also the exclusive Australian distributor for Azimut (Azimut Benetti Group).  

https://www.dalboramarine.com.au/

About GraysOnline

GraysOnline is the largest industrial, auto and commercial online auction business in Australasia, offering a huge range of industrial, auto, consumer and commercial goods, direct from manufacturers and distributors. GraysOnline is revolutionizing how assets are being sourced, sold and purchased throughout the world. A best in class e-commerce platform and commitment to customer service, makes buying and selling with GraysOnline easy, efficient, fair and transparent.

https://www.graysonline.com

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THE House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy is commencing public hearings for its inquiry into vegetation and land management relating to bushfires.

Its first hearing will be held in Canberra on Wednesday February 12, 2020, with representatives from CSIRO, to discuss the science and research behind bushfire behaviour, and activities such as hazard reduction burning, clearing and land rehabilitation.

The Committee continues to welcome public submissions to the inquiry, due by March 31, 2020.

Public hearing details

Date: Wednesday, 12 February 2020
Time: 10:15am to 11am
Location: Committee Room 2R2, Parliament House, Canberra

The hearing will be broadcast live at aph.gov.au/live.

The Committee intends to hold public hearings at various locations, which will be announced in due course on the inquiry website. Further information about the inquiry can also be found on the website.

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THE Indigenous Affairs Committee will hear from a number of Indigenous businesses today in Canberra as part of its Inquiry into Pathways and Participation Opportunities for Indigenous Australians in Employment and Business.

Committee chair Julian Leeser MP said the views and experiences of successful Indigenous-owned enterprises will be hugely important for the inquiry.

"The Indigenous Business Trade Fair in Parliament House tomorrow will provide an opportune time to hold discussions with some of the participants," Mr Leeser said.

"Who better than existing Indigenous companies to advise us on what government might do to foster more business start-ups and greater economic independence among our First Nations communities.

"This is our first public hearing and we hope to speak to many more of these businesses in the coming months in a variety of sectors."

The public hearing will be from 12.30-1.30pm and the full program will be available at the inquiry website.

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DECEMBER 2019 saw the volume of First Home Buyer home loans surge to their highest level since late 2009 according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data, according to Master Builders Australia chief economist Shane Garrett.

During December, the volume of home loans to first home buyers increased by 6.2 percent in seasonally-adjusted terms to record a monthly total of 9,606. The last time a higher monthly total was recorded was exactly 10 years ago back in December 2009.

“The good news is that first home buyer activity has stepped up even further since the start of this year," Mr Garrett said. "The new First Home Loan Deposit Scheme is already a big success and the official data will show more big gains for first home buyers once they are released.

“Apart from first home buyers, today’s figures show that other areas of the housing market are also recovering well. Housing investor loans expanded for the third consecutive month and hit a 14-month high during December,” he said.

“There is a great opportunity for people to buy or build their first home at the moment. Apart from the assistance offered by the new First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, interest rates are at their lowest in many decades and house prices have stabilised after dropping back from the highs reached in recent years,” Mr Garrett said.

During December 2019, the first home buyer share of the owner occupier market was highest in Western Australia (43.2%) followed by Victoria (40.9%), the Northern Territory (38.4%) and the ACT (32.6%).

The first home buyer market share was lowest in South Australia (25.7%), followed by Tasmania (27.6%) and New South Wales (30.5%). In Queensland, First Home Buyers account for 31.4 percent of the market. 

www.masterbuilders.com.au

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WITH EMPLOYEE underpayment scandals occurring with increasing regularity, new research has revealed that 48 percent of organisations want better information on penalty rates and other shift work entitlements, to enable their payroll departments to do their jobs better.

The research comes from a survey of more than 630 payroll managers by the Australian Payroll Association, one of Australia’s leading networks in payroll training, consulting and advisory for employers.

The results indicated that the building and construction industry most struggled with understanding shift work entitlements: 74 percent of payroll managers admitting they required more knowledge of this entitlement for better job performance. This compared with half the amount (37 percent) of payroll managers from the professional, scientific and technical services industries that felt they required more knowledge regarding shift work entitlements, including penalty rates.

The data also revealed which other entitlements payroll managers require more knowledge of: Forty-five (45) percent need more information about general tax requirements across multiple employee payment categories, 40 percent need more knowledge of long service leave payment rules, and 43 percent need more information on redundancy pay entitlements.

Payroll managers in smaller companies of under 50 people were much more concerned about redundancy pay, with 59 percent declaring it was an entitlement they required more information about to perform their job to a higher standard. This compared with only 31 percent of payroll managers at large companies with more than 5,000 employers who felt they needed more information on this entitlement.

Tracy Angwin, a leading Australian expert on payroll and the CEO and founder of the Australian Payroll Association, said, “With more and more companies facing Fair Work action as a result of employee underpayments, organisations must minimise the incidence of payroll errors. Payroll managers require proper training and qualification to maximise job performance and accuracy.

"The Australian Payroll Association offers online and in-person training sessions, as well as formal payroll qualifications for payroll personnel, to help them keep up-to-date with the technical aspects of payroll. We can also help them to find out how they can automate or simplify their payroll processes, as well as optimise their payroll functions.”

About Australian Payroll Association

Australian Payroll Association is one of Australia’s leading networks in payroll training, consulting and advisory for employers. It offers end-to-end payroll process reviews, compliance auditing, specialist recruitment services, payroll qualifications and training courses, and a membership program. Established in 2010, Australian Payroll Association offers the only nationally accredited payroll qualifications at Certificate IV and Diploma level through its registered training organisation, Australian Payroll Institute. It also holds annual events including its national conference and end of year seminars, in addition to releasing an annual Payroll Benchmarking Report. It also has a regular digital podcast series called ‘Talking Payroll’. 

austpayroll.com.au.

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RECOVERY EFFORTS following recent extreme weather have been hampered by a severe shortage of distribution power workers, with the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) claiming lengthy delays to the restoration of electricity to tens of thousands of homes is the direct result of massive job cuts.

More than 60,000 homes remain without power across Sydney, the Central Coast and Blue Mountains — with many to be without electricity until the end of the week — as overstretched crews work around the clock in trying conditions to replace damaged sections of the poles and wires network.

In addition to crews being brought in from around the state, distribution company Ausgrid has reportedly requested assistance from Queensland power companies to cover the chronic shortage of staff.

ETU secretary Justin Page said the large-scale blackouts — which come just months after a previous storm left parts of Sydney’s north shore without power for more than a week — highlighted the impact of 5,000 job losses since 2015 at electrical distributors Ausgrid, Endeavour Energy, and Essential Energy.

“Our members have been working around the clock in recent days, desperately attempting to restore power to homes and businesses, but the fact is that with 5,000 fewer workers there simply aren’t as many highly-skilled people available to do the work,” Mr Page said.

“Despite the network growing in size, and the risks posed by extreme weather and climate change increasing, staffing levels in the NSW electricity network have never been as low as they currently are.

“Power workers have been doing emergency restoration work for months straight, including throughout the recent bushfire crisis, repairing unprecedented amounts of damage to vital electricity infrastructure.

“But the NSW Government’s privatisation agenda, and imposed cuts from the Federal Government’s Australian Energy Regulator, have combined to drive the loss of 40 per cent of the jobs at the state’s three electricity distributors," he said.

“While the bushfires may have been unprecedented, scientists have long warned that climate change would cause more frequent and extreme weather events, yet rather than increase resources to make our power network more resilient we continue to see the loss of specialist distribution workers.

“Our union has repeatedly warned that the unsustainable slashing of jobs would impact recovery efforts following fires, floods, storms and other natural disasters, yet rather than act on those warnings we have seen the cuts continue, with another 1,300 jobs at risk at NSW electricity distributors in the next three years.

“We need the NSW and Federal governments to learn from the current situation and deliver an immediate boost to the resources available to repair the electricity poles and wires in a timely way following natural disasters.

“Extreme weather events such as storms and bushfires are becoming more common with climate change, so the prudent way to make the power network more resilient is to immediately stop planned cuts and begin rebuilding job numbers to take action on these risks.”

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THE House of Representatives Committee on Tax and Revenue has commenced an inquiry into the development of the Australian retail corporate bond market.

Jason Falinski, chair of the committee, said, "A number of reviews have observed that the Australian retail corporate bond market is small compared to those of similar countries.  The committee is interested in why Australian businesses make greater use of offshore bond markets rather than issuing bonds."

The committee will consider the tax treatment of corporate bonds as well as the Corporations Act 2001 to determine whether there are any impediments to the development of the retail corporate bond market.

Submissions from interested individuals and organisations are invited by Thursday, March 16, 2020. The preferred method of receiving submissions is by electronic format lodged online using a My Parliament account.

Further information about the inquiry including the terms of reference is available on the committee’s website.

Public hearing details

Public hearings for the inquiry will be held in due course and notified through the Committee’s website.

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