Penalty rate push undermines productivity summit

Jul 18, 2025
Financial Review

A bill to enshrine penalty rates in law will be among the first to be rushed through parliament when it sits next week, prompting claims from business that the government is not serious about fixing productivity.   

The penalty rates move, which was promised in the election campaign, will effectively ensure 2.6 million workers on awards and their employers cannot have penalty rates reduced in return for a higher rate of base pay if it leaves a single worker worse off.   


Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth says those who rely on the award safety net deserve to have their wages protected.

Currently, such decisions are made by the industrial umpire when varying awards, which, in turn, form the basis for other wage agreements negotiated by enterprise bargaining.

The move will effectively scuttle recent applications by employer groups across the retail, clerical and banking sectors to reduce entitlements for some workers in exchange for higher pay.

“If you rely on the modern award safety net and work weekends, public holidays, early mornings or late nights, you deserve to have your wages protected,” said Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth.



Legislation to slash student debt will be another priority when parliament sits next week. The government will not say when it plans to introduce the bill to double the tax on superannuation balances above $3 million.

Australian Industry Group chief executive officer Innes Willox said the government’s decision to fast-track the penalty rates bill when parliament sits for the first time since the election contrasted with its planned three-day productivity summit in mid-August.

‘Dark irony’
“The dark irony of the impact of anti-productivity workplace relations changes introduced over the past three years now rolling across the economy at a time when we are trying to have a serious conversation about boosting our long-term flatlining productivity is not lost on the business community,” he said.

“Although there is the potential for significant progress to drive productivity-boosting reform across tax, deregulation, skills, energy and environment approvals and research and development, the jumbo-sized elephant sitting in the corner of the room will be the inability to discuss the negative impact of the recent workplace relations measures on productivity.

“As we predicted, it is only now that unions are beginning to muscle up around right of entry, pursuing multi-party bargaining deals across the economy and gaming the intractable bargaining provisions to force employers into outcomes where they can’t trade off productivity changes for wage increases.”

He said while the employer group and others were still in negotiations with the government about the proposals to legislate penalty rates, “there is obvious concern that it could further reduce workplace flexibility, especially at a time when we are already seeing rising national unemployment and the private sector clearly in job-shedding mode”.

At the same time, Willox said the organisation was updating work-from-home arrangements for more than 1 million workers covered by the clerks award.

“This is a clear sign that the nine-to-five working arrangements no longer suit many workers, and we need to update our systems to recognise this.”

Business is still reeling from the outcome of the 2022 Jobs and Skills summit, when the government unveiled two tranches of industrial relations changes, such as eradicating the use of labour-hire and bringing back multi-employer bargaining.

Industrial relations will not be the agenda at the productivity meeting to be held in mid-August.

Penalty Rates Protection Tops Government Agenda   
July 19 2025 Mirage news.
The Hon Amanda Rishworth MP
Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations
Penalty and overtime rates for millions of Australian workers are one step closer to protection enshrined in law, with the Albanese Labor Government set to introduce legislation on its key election commitment next week.

The Bill will protect crucial entitlements for around 2.6 million modern award-reliant workers, many who count on penalty rates to make ends meet.

The legislation inserts a high-level principle into the Fair Work Act that operates alongside the modern awards objective, ensuring penalty rates and overtime can't be rolled up into a single rate of pay where it leaves any individual employee worse off.

Employers in the retail, clerical and banking sectors have made applications to the Fair Work Commission to trade away the penalty rates of lower paid workers from awards, leaving some workers worse off.

The Bill we will introduce next week ensures that in applications like these, no worker sees their pay packet reduced.

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Amanda Rishworth said the legislation builds on the significant reforms of Labor's first term, and the re-elected Government's submission to secure minimum wage earners a 3.5 per cent pay boost.

"If you rely on the modern award safety net and work weekends, public holidays, early mornings or late nights, you deserve to have your wages protected."


"We want this law passed as a top priority, so workers are protected from the loopholes that see their take-home pay go backwards."

"Enterprise bargaining is the appropriate place to negotiate on entitlements - not eroding the award safety net."

Modern awards provide entitlements such as pay, hours of work, rosters, breaks, allowances, penalty rates and overtime. They form part of the safety net of minimum wages and entitlements for Australia's lowest paid workers.

People who are covered by awards are more likely to be women, work part time, be under 35 and employed on a casual basis.

People that work overtime, weekends and public holidays should get paid the penalty rates.  Good on labor for protecting the penalty rates.   

greggerypeccary wrote on Jul 19^th, 2025 at 1:10pm:


https://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay-and-wages/penalty-rates-allowances-and-other-payments/penalty-rates

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i wonder how long it will take FD to figure out that he shot down his own argument?

Quote:


Duh. But does that mean that it has nothing to do with overtime, as you also claimed?

Now, back to my original point:

So the unions oppose 99% of employees getting a raise because the 1% who are best at milking the current system won't get as much bonus overtime?

The unions are good at putting a positive spin on screwing over everyone else, in particular the unemployed. But in this case they are screwing over their own members.

greggerypeccary wrote on Jul 19^th, 2025 at 2:20pm:


You are confused Greg. What makes you think that getting a penalty rate for doing overtime has nothing to do with doing overtime? Are you just confused by the fact that they used a different word?

greggerypeccary wrote on Jul 19^th, 2025 at 2:35pm:


I am not using them interchangeably Greg. That is just you getting yourself confused, yet again. But You could if you wanted to, and you would get the same conclusion - the unions are trying to put a positive spin on screwing over their own members.

Can you tell the difference between two words having a different meaning, and them having nothing to do with each other? Do you still think that getting penalty rates for doing overtime has nothing to do with doing overtime? I realise that you have John Smith cheering you on here, but I suggest whenever you see that happen it is because you are saying something stupid.

The unions oppose 99% of employees getting a raise because the 1% who are best at milking the current system won't get as much bonus overtime?