MediNat Australia

Court gives business the go-ahead to drug and alcohol test staff Reported in Smart Company Friday, 15 June 2012 11:43 Cara Waters The Federal Court has upheld an employer’s right to subject workers to mandatory drug and alcohol tests in a judgment welcomed by business groups and criticised by unions. The full bench of the court yesterday ruled against the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union, which had fought against the testing on a Victorian roadworks site. "It seems clear enough that mandatory testing is a surer method of determining who is affected by alcohol and therefore who is at risk (of injuring himself or others) than relying on self-identification or the inclination of one worker to inform on another," Judges Robert Buchanan and Anna Katzmann held. The CFMEU was appealing against a decision of Fair Work Australia's full bench which found there was nothing in a collective agreement to prevent Wagstaff Piling requiring...

Fake pot sales hitting a high   THE crackdown on synthetic marijuana is a shambles, with no one charged and sales booming. A proposed tough new law banning the sale of products "intended to have a similar pharmacological effect" to cannabis, lapsed with the change of government. Police seized about 100kg of suspected synthetic cannabis in statewide raids six months ago but, since then, a Sunday Mail investigation has found that a tobacconist in a southeast Queensland mining town was still selling it until late last month, when police "provided advice". Although the tobacconist had a separate till to ring up the lucrative product, and it was drawing a queue of mining workers, nothing was seized by attending police. Officers told The Sunday Mail that one tobacconist in another regional mining area was making $1000 a day selling fake cannabis. Miners had turned to the product because it could not be detected in standard workplace ...