The Wire

One week ago, the Sunday Age newspaper in Melbourne carried a leaked report which revealed the Baillieu Government’s secret plans to goad the state’s nurses into industrial action.

The idea was to force the nurses’ union into arbitration, which the report considered more likely to achieve a favourable outcome for the government than direct negotiations.Shant Fabricatorian looks at whether this, along with the Qantas grounding, heralds a new era in which employers target early intervention by the federal government’s industrial relations umpire, Fair Work Australia.