High Court to rule on IR challenge
THE High Court will hand down its decision on the states' challenge to federal industrial relations changes next week.
The judgment will be released in Canberra on Tuesday morning.
Several state governments and unions have challenged the Federal Government's right to use the Constitution's corporations power to abolish state IR systems and create a unified national regime.
Opposition industrial relations spokesman Stephen Smith said parties in the case were advised today that the judgment would be delivered at 10.15am on Tuesday.
"So early next week we'll get a very clear understanding from the High Court about the full extent of the Commonwealth's power," Mr Smith has said on Sky News.
"But irrespective of what the High Court decides, we won't have a so-called single uniform system.
"There'll still be some people who will fall within state jurisdictions because the Commonwealth will have power to some extent over corporations, but you'll still have Australians who are employed by state governments or by unincorporated associations or partnerships or trusts.
"So we are still going to end up with a John Howard jurisdictional dog's breakfast."
Last month, ACTU secretary Greg Combet said that if the High Court challenge failed, unions would exploit the same powers to enact change.
The NSW, Western Australian, South Australian, Queensland and Victorian governments, as well as Unions NSW and the Australian Workers Union challenged the Work Choices laws in the High Court in a hearing last May.
The Tasmanian, ACT and Northern Territory governments made contributions to the case.
The Work Choices laws passed Parliament last December and came into effect in March this year.
