A carer has been sentenced to one-and-a-half years in prison after stealing almost $27,000 from a blind 103-year-old Perth woman. Michelle Bronwyn Kotukutuk Stirling had been employed by a professional care provider to look after the vulnerable elderly woman, who is legally blind and partially deaf, at her Mount Lawley home. The District Court in Perth was told the victim had grown to trust Stirling, 52, and had given her the PIN number to her bank account so she could go shopping for her. But Stirling unlawfully accessed the account 76 times between December 2012 and February 2015. In total, she took $26,963. District Court Judge Ronald Birmingham rejected a submission by Stirling’s lawyer to suspend her sentence.
November 20, 2015
A union has criticised an aged care home on Hobart’s eastern shore for removing paid parental leave entitlements, saying it will not do any favours to a sector dealing with a skills shortage. The Fair Work Commission has approved a protected industrial action ballot for workers at the Queen Victoria Homes (QVH) in Lindisfarne. The Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) said it reached an in-principle agreement with the home’s management that workers would be entitled to 14 weeks of paid parental leave. The union said management had now taken that off the table, telling employees to access parental leave through the Federal Government.
November 20, 2015
The Queensland Nurses Union says many Gympie nurses, in the state’s south, are unsure about their future after a long-running aged care facility in the region announced its closure. The Winston House Aged Care facility is home to 48 residents and more than 50 medical staff. The organisation said it needed to close because of the building’s aging structure and higher levels of care needed for residents. Provider Blue Care said it would try to redeploy nurses to a nearby facility but the union’s Bernadette O’Connor said not every job was guaranteed.
November 20, 2015
The former union leader Kathy Jackson’s battle with the law continued yesterday when it emerged she was representing herself in an appeal against a Federal Court order to pay the Health Services Union $1.4 million – but was too sick to appear.
November 20, 2015
TERMINATION OF EMPLOYMENT – contract for specified term ss.386, 394 Fair Work Act 2009 – application for relief from unfair dismissal – applicant’s employment ended on 30 June 2015 – jurisdictional objection – respondent says applicant was employed pursuant to a fixed term contract – meaning of dismissed – if applicant has not been dismissed the Commission has no jurisdiction to hear his claim for unfair dismissal – Commission satisfied applicant employed on a fixed term contract – found applicant’s employment ended when the fixed term contract reached its end date – applicant not dismissed – Commission does not have jurisdiction to deal with his application – application dismissed. Zammit v Larrakia Nation Aboriginal Corporation
November 13, 2015
Former union boss and ex-MP Craig Thomson has no money to pay any penalty imposed over hundreds of thousands of dollars in union funds he used without authority, including for prostitutes, the Federal Court has heard. The court is hearing submissions in Melbourne on penalties in a civil case brought by the Fair Work Commission over the former Health Services Union secretary’s misuse of union money for his own benefit. The hearing follows a damning judgment by Justice Christopher Jessup in September backing the commission’s position that Thomson had misspent more than $300,000 of union funds on brothels, travel and his own federal politics campaign in 2007. Thomson did not appear in court, and although the court was previously told he could not afford a lawyer, he was represented by employment lawyer Chris McArdle. The civil case comes after Thomson was last year found guilty of theft by the County Court of Victoria for which he was fined $25,000, narrowly avoiding jail time.
November 13, 2015
A union has criticised an aged care home on Hobart’s eastern shore for removing paid parental leave entitlements, saying it will not do any favours to a sector dealing with a skills shortage. The Fair Work Commission has approved a protected industrial action ballot for workers at the Queen Victoria Homes (QVH) in Lindisfarne. The Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) said it reached an in-principle agreement with the home’s management that workers would be entitled to 14 weeks of paid parental leave. The union said management had now taken that off the table, telling employees to access parental leave through the Federal Government. “Access to paid parental leave is one of the big issues for aged care workers, a predominantly female workforce,” state secretary Tim Jacobson said.
November 13, 2015
Thousands of health professionals are being actively monitored by authorities because they have a criminal history, drug problem, health impairment, or because they are not suitably qualified for their job. New data shows 5702 health professionals, including doctors, nurses and dentists, were being watched by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency last financial year because of concerns about their conduct. Doctors, nurses and Chinese medicine practitioners made up the bulk of those being monitored and the most common reason was their “suitability and eligibility” for the job. This could mean they do not hold an approved or substantially equivalent qualification in their profession, lack English language skills, or do not fully meet the requirements of any other approved registration standard.
