Overview

• Draft legislation will be among the first bills introduced to the 48th federal parliament to enshrine penalty rates and overtime pay as protected workplace conditions.
• Changes prevent reductions to penalty rates in exchange for higher base pay if employees end up worse off, closing loopholes that threatened take-home earnings.
• Approximately 2.6 million award-dependent workers, including women, part-time, casual and younger staff, will gain legal safeguards for unsocial hours compensation.
• Peak retail and business groups had proposed opt-out agreements to waive penalty rates for staff in return for higher base salaries, which Labor opposed at the Fair Work Commission.
• Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth said these reforms build on first-term industrial relations changes and set the stage for other early measures such as HECS debt relief.