Federal Government page 61 of 67

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has, as expected, scrapped his signature paid parental leave scheme, five months before it was due to start.

Former ABCC head John Lloyd is the new Australian Public Service Commissioner.

The Federal Government has further tightened its construction IR code and warned, on the eve of the Victorian election, that states that don't agree to apply it to infrastructure projects will not receive Commonwealth funding.

The Fair Work Commission will have to consider whether enterprise agreements contain productivity improvements before it approves them, while unions face additional hurdles to protected action, under the Coalition's latest IR bill.

Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie says FWC expert panel member Tim Harcourt is still playing politics despite being counselled by tribunal president Iain Ross that some of his public comments are inconsistent with the Commission's code of conduct.

In the first real IR test of the post-July 1 Senate's precarious balance of power, Palmer United Party senators voted with their Coalition colleagues last night to preserve, by one vote, the rights of the WA government and third parties to ask the Fair Work Commission to terminate damaging industrial action.

Maritime unions have today failed in a bid to reverse the Abbott Government's changes to working visa arrangements for offshore resource projects.

Employment Minister Eric Abetz says that no formal decision has been made to create an appeal jurisdiction for the Fair Work Commission, despite Prime Minister Tony Abbott flagging his personal support for the plan.

The Abbott Government this morning introduced a Bill in the House of Representatives to cap redundancy payments under the Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme at a maximum of 16 weeks, describing the current benefits for employees of insolvent companies as "overly generous" and as creating a "moral hazard".

Labor and unions have slammed yesterday's deal between the Coalition and the Palmer United Party that keeps employers' guaranteed superannuation payments at their current rate until 2021 and scraps the low income contribution in three years.