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Law in Australia does not have a singular, simple, clear or unequivocal criteria for determination of when a person is an "employee" versus when a person is an independent contractor. Some cases leave little doubt. In other cases the distinction is less clear. Peter Punch, a leading practitioner and author on Australian employment law has recently called for intervention by Government, ie the legislature, to stop tinkering with the law, and instead solve problems with this messy state for the critical legal distinction between employees and independent contractors. I suspect Punch would readily admit intervention is unlikely for some time. The Law Society represents solicitors in England and Wales. From negotiating with and lobbying the profession's regulators, government and others, to offering training and advice, we're here to help, protect and promote solicitors across

England and Wales. There was no official vote count in the ballot in France's lower house of parliament, with passage determined by a simple show of hands. The measure must still be passed in the Senate, where its fate is less clear. The measure put France on a collision course with Turkey, a strategic ally and trading partner. Ankara reacted swiftly with state-run TV saying that Ambassador Tahsin Burcuoglu would be withdrawn. Turkey had threatened to remove its ambassador if French lawmakers did not desist and warned of "grave consequences" to political and economic ties. Turkey vehementl

y rejects the term "genocide" for the World War I era-mass killings of Armenians, saying the issue should be left to historians. It contends that France is trampling freedom of expression and that President Nicolas Sarkozy is on a vote-getting mission ahead of April presidential elections. An estimated half-million Armenians live in France and many have pressed to raise the legal statute regarding the massacres to the same level as the Holocaust by punishing denial of genocide. France formally recognized the killings as genocide in 2001, but provided no penalty for anyone denying that. The bill sets a punishment of up to one year in prison and a fine of euro45,000 ($59,000) for those who deny or "outrageously minimize" the killings by Ottoman Turks, putting such action on a par with denial of the Holocaust. "Our ancestors can finally rest in peace," said 75-year-old Maurice Delighazarian who said his grandparents on both sides were among the victims of the 1915 massacre. Vaskel Avedissian, 25, said he spent time with Turkish demonstrators

outside the National Assembly earlier Thursday and "These people have nothing against Armenians." But, he added, "Turkey is the spokesman for state negationism today." Lawmakers denounced what they called Turkey's propaganda effort in a bid to sway them. "Laws voted in this chamber cannot be dictated by Ankara," said Jean-Christophe Lagarde, a deputy from the New Center party, as Turks demonstrated outside the National Assembly ahead of the vote. The bill's author said she was "shocked" at the attempt to interfere with the parliament's work. "My bill doesn't aim at any particular country," said Valerie Boyer, a deputy from the ruling conservative UMP party. "It is inspired by European law, which says that the people who deny the e

xistence of the genocides must be sanctioned." An initial bid to punish denial of the Armenian genocide failed earlier this year, killed by the Senate five years after it was passed by the lower house. French authorities have stressed the importance of bilateral ties with Turkey and the key role it plays in sensitive strategic issues as a member of NATO, in Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere. However, Sarkozy has long opposed the entry into the European Union of mostly Muslim Turkey, putting a constant strain on the two nations' ties. Turkish authorities have weighed in with caustic remarks about France's past. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has recalled France's colonial history in Algeria and a 1945 massacre there, as well as its role in Rwanda, where some have claimed a French role in the 1994 genocide. "Those

who do want to see genocide should turn around and look at their own dirty and bloody history," Erdogan said last weekend. "Turkey will stand against this intentional, malicious, unjust and illegal attempt through all kinds of diplomatic means." Turkish President Abdullah Gul spoke out on the issue this week, saying it will "put France in a position of

a country that does not respect freedom of expression and does not allow objective scientific research." Turkey insists the mass killings of Armenians — up to 1.5 million, historians estimate — occurred during civil unrest as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, with losses on both sides. Historians contend the Armenians were massacred in the first genocide of the 20th century. France is pressing Turkey to own up to its history for the sake of "memory" just as the French have officially recognized the role of their state — the collaborationist Vichy government — in the deportation of Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II. In October, Sarkozy visited Armenia and its capital of Yerevan, urging Turkey to recognize the 1915 killings as genocide. 

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