What Does A New Labor Government Mean For Employers

With voting for the Federal election complete and Anthony Albanese of the Australia Labor Party (ALP) sworn in as Australia’s next prime minister, employers may be starting to wonder what this means for their business, their employees and the employment relationship as a whole.

Whilst the industrial relations space did not form one of the more main components of the ALP’s agenda for the 2022 election, the ALP has set out a number of changes that that it will be pushing for during their term.

The ALP has made the following commitments in relation to IR reform in Australia for the forthcoming term:

• The ALP intends to amend the definition of ‘casual employment’ in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (FWA) to provide that employment status will be determined solely by pattern of work. This change is intended to increase employee bargaining power, lift wages and provide a pathway to permanent employment for casual employees according to the pattern of ongoing employment rather than terms and conditions agreed at the start of the employment relationship.

• The ALP intends to introduce ‘same-job same-pay’ legislation to ensure that all workers receive the same pay for doing the same work. The proposed legislation would make it unlawful to pay labour hire employees less than those employed directly with the employer for the same job. The ALP considers this change will contribute to a rise in wages.

• The ALP has shown a commitment to achieving gender equality, expressing a goal to expanding access to paid parental leave to 26 weeks at full pay with superannuation, funded by the government with employer contributions. However, the ALP recently announced that it will not be pursuing this in the first term.

• The ALP has promised greater regulation of the ‘gig-economy’, including rideshare and food delivery services, under which minimum standards would be set. The ALP indicated that the Fair Work Commission (FWC) would be provided with the power to set these minimum standards.

• The ALP intends to limit the ability of employers to hire employees on fixed-term contracts. Specifically workers could have no more than 4 consecutive fixed-term contracts within a 2 year period before the employer is required to offer permanent employment. The ALP’s aim is to improve job security.

• The ALP has expressed an intention to introduce a new small claims tribunal co-located with the FWC to make quick decisions on wage theft claims of up to $100,000 per worker.

• The ALP plan to work with State and Territory governments, employers and unions to develop portable entitlement schemes for annual, sick and long service leave in particular industries. No specific details regarding how the scheme will work have yet been provided.

• The ALP has indicated that it will push to close the gender pay gap and increase wages for women by:

  • improving the ability for the FWC to order pay increases for workers in low paid, female dominated industries;

  • introducing legislation requiring that large companies report their gender pay gap; and

  • prohibiting pay secrecy clauses and giving employees the right to disclose their pay, if they want to;

  • implementing all 55 recommendations in the Respect@Work: Sexual Harassment National Inquiry Report 2020;

  • providing for 10 days paid family and domestic violence leave in the National Employment Standards (NES); and

  • taking action to address pay gaps in Australian Public Sector.

• The ALP has expressed a commitment to enshrine superannuation in the NES and to impose a target on Australian Taxation Office to improve recovery of unpaid superannuation.

Harwood Andrews will provide further updates on changes in this space as they occur. Please contact a member of our team with any queries or to obtain any assistance.

Jim Babalis
Special Counsel
T 03 5225 5205
E jbabalis@ha.legal