On 11 July 2012, The Age reporters Ben Butler and Clay Lucas provoked a storm by reporting that insolvency experts suspected that directors of some troubled businesses traded until company cash reserves were exhausted so that the government would pay most of the entitlements they should have paid to their workers. The article triggered predictable responses from both sides of the political spectrum.
Protection of Employee Entitlements in Insolvency investigates whether there are ways to safeguard the entitlements of employees that are presently lost through the improper behaviour of directors, while at the same time not affecting legitimate business activities. There is no straightforward 'solution' of universal application, but a range of complementary means that will lessen, rather than eliminate, the loss of employee entitlements.
