Public Eye: Tensions rise during Australian Taxation Office bargaining, politicians exit Qantas' Chairman's Lounge

The Canberra Times reported last Monday that the Australian Services Union - which represents 1100 tax office staff - was escalating a claim with the Fair Work Commission, accusing the ATO of trying to "deliberately mislead" union representatives, "in the hope it might help it evade a close evaluation of its proposed changes"

The union claims the Tax Office tried to cut conditions from the enterprise agreement around managing underperformance.

The ATO's working draft of the new enterprise agreement, sighted by Public Eye, appears to remove the requirement for managers to discuss concerns with employees judged to be underperforming and "consider any issues that may be affecting performance".

The proposed draft now says that "when a manager forms an opinion that an employee's work performance is below the standard expected for that particular job a Performance Improvement Plan will be implemented".

In its application to the commission, the union claimed the Tax Office verbally told union representatives that the two-step process still existed and had just been moved in the agreement. In a later letter to the union, the ATO also wrote that it simply intended "to clarify the existing processes, not to remove them".

Union branch secretary Jeff Lapidos said the draft agreement shows otherwise, and has asked the commission to order the Tax Office to apologise to union representatives and agency staff for its actions.

Mr Lapidos also said that the draft agreement shows the ATO has removed another sentence from this section that says "employees should be given help to improve their work performance to a satisfactory level through fair procedures ...", without clearly marking this change with a strikethrough in the working draft.

The proposed agreement also appears to change the initial time frame that employees have to fix their performance from a "reasonable time" to six weeks.

An ATO spokesperson reiterated earlier comments that the tax office wasn't trying to remove existing processes and that the working draft by "no means represented the ATO's final position or even a firm proposal in relation to these clauses".

But the saga appears to have taken a serious toll on the union's relationship with the department, with Mr Lapidos telling Public Eye that since becoming branch secretary in 1995, he has "never experienced this shameful conduct ever".

The ATO doesn't seem too happy about the saga, either.

In emails sighted by Public Eye, acting deputy commissioner Alison Stott asked the FWC to bring forward a conference scheduled between the parties on October 10, noting how the dispute had "attracted some media attention" (who, us?). The commission has denied the request.

Qantas' exclusive Chairman's Lounge was once again in the news this week, with Nine newspapers reporting that independent MP Dr Monique Ryan has given up her membership to the invite-only club.

We understand Dr Ryan is planning on introducing a bill this year to regulate lobbying in federal politics, requiring ministers to publish their diaries and create an enforceable Lobbying Code of Conduct.

She isn't the only federal politician to give up access to Qantas' elite airport lounges (and the free food, drinks and refuge from us common folk they provide). Greens transport spokesperson Elizabeth Watson-Brown and member for Brisbane Stephen Bates have left (Mr Bates also appears to have also given up his Virgin Lounge Membership).

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The recent moves had us wondering whether any other federal politicians are considering dropping their lounge access. Public Eye reached out to 30 federal politicians from all sides of the chamber and heard back from... three.

Shout out to shadow transport minister Bridget McKenzie and crossbencher Zoe Daniel for letting us know they are holding onto their memberships for now, but that doesn't affect their ability to scrutinise the airline (and to Helen Haines, who said it's up to every individual MP to "manage conflicts of interest, real or perceived").

Some noise about hot desking in the ATO

The Tax Office in Canberra is preparing to make Barton its new home and, as part of the move, they're embracing "efficiency", "space optimisation" and "unallocated workspaces" - or hot desking.

But the planned change has sparked some questions - namely, will the public servants who spend most of their day on the phone just distract everyone else in the office?

During the parliamentary committee hearing on Tuesday, Labor's Tracey Roberts noted that this has been a concern before.

"I recall that with the Hobart ATO fit-out there was concern from staff who spend the majority of their day on the phone being disruptive to other staff if moved to an unallocated working environment," she said.

ATO Assistant Commissioner Brendon Fisher assured the committee they're learning from the lessons of past moves, and that feedback on the fit-out has so far been positive.

"We've also heard feedback around noise transfer from break-out areas, so we're looking to have the ability to close breakout areas wherever possible and ensuring that there are appropriate floor coverings in the areas to stop noise transfer," he said

The Australian Electoral Commission is about to become one of Australia's top five largest workforces, recruiting around 107,000 staff to work the referendum.

The agency said it has already sent out around 95,000 job offers and had around 63,000 confirmations, but it still pushing for people to apply "particularly in remote areas of WA".

This year's recruitment process sounded much calmer compared to the last federal election, during which the AEC lost almost 50 per cent of its workforce thanks to a surge in COVID-19 and flu cases.

"We even deployed our chief financial officer from behind the spreadsheets to a small town ... several hours east of Perth to make sure we could open the polling place," AEC boss Tom Rogers told reporters this week.