The latest round of redundancies at The Australian brings the number of staff laid off by News Ltd this year to more than 100. Last week the national newspaper has sacked seven of its longest-serving photographers with collective service at the company of more than 150 years. The Alliance has called on the management of The Australian to front staff and explain the latest round of job cuts as required under the Enterprise Bargaining Agreement.

Ten staff working on the racing guides at the Sydney Morning Herald, the Illawarra Mercury and the Age were told last week of plans to make them redundant and outsource their jobs to Pagemasters. Up to 12 Information Services staff were also told that their jobs were being cut - again because their work was being outsourced to Pagemasters.

The Alliance has been working with the Right to Know coalition and in its own right for improvements to the Government’s proposed Freedon of Information laws. While we think the amended legislation launched by John Faulkner in March is a good first step, there is still too much information about government that is exempt from FoI laws. Read our submission here.

Regarding pay rises for AWA staff, Andrew Biocca, News Ltd Group Employment Relations Manager, said last week: "We have never ‘automatically’ paid AWA staff pay increases from when the EBA increases fall due."

The recent announcement of 10 editorial job cuts at the Hobart Mercury means the paper’s owner, News Limited, has now axed at least 80 journalists from its Australian newspapers in recent months.

The 10th annual Public Affairs conference is being held in Sydney on May 18th and 19th. Check out our live blog. It's almost as good as being there! Click here to go to the blog.