Here is a paper I recently gave to the College of Law in Sydney on Independent Contractors [...] Continue Reading…

I was asked to provide an article to the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age News Review Q&A Section on Worker Safety. Download the article here is which includes my contribution. [...] Continue Reading…

Please let me welcome guest columnist Josephine Kelly, a friend of mine who has had an extensive practice at the Sydney Bar in Land and Environment Law. Her article on water use was published in the Australian Financial Review on the 16th November. It is well worth reading as is another recent article she wrote for The Australian called Climate change sceptics lose battle as onus of proof shift.

No political party or Independent member in the Federal parliament is being honest with the people of the Murray-Darling Basin and the Australian public. The Water Act puts the environment first when allocating water in the Murray-Darling Basin. Social and economic considerations are not relevant to deciding how much water the environment needs. Water available for human use is what is left. [...] Continue Reading…

The American television series, Mad Men now in its fourth season is compelling viewing both dramatically and as social commentary. It is set on the cusp of the fifties and sixties in the fictional Madison Avenue advertising agency, Sterling Cooper . Baby boomers and their offspring when watching this show are looking at the prime years of the World War II generation at work and play. What immediately strikes one about this historically authentic show is the depiction of the social attitudes and mores in this busy office setting . Most noticeably everyone is smoking, constantly and in the office! The executives when not at a long lunch are regularly pouring a colleague a whisky from a bottle prominently on display in the office. The ethos of sexuality in the office is of the louche kind. The typing pool and models are fair game for conquest and open comment by the executive staff which is predominately male.

This show brought to mind the changing nature of the Australian workplace and in particular for me the thirty five years of my working life in industrial relations and the legal profession. [...] Continue Reading…

This is the paper I presented at the Workplace Bullying seminar being held in Sydney on Friday 17 September 2010 at the Hilton Sydney.

Download a copy my Statutory, Criminal and Employment Remedies for Bullying [...] Continue Reading…