Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025
22 August 2025
On 12 August 2025, the Law Council made a submission to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee on the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025 (Cth).
The Law Council did not comment on the substance of the Bill but raised a point of clarification in relation to the Bill’s Explanatory Memorandum.
In two places, the Explanatory Memorandum states that one of the primary purposes of the Bill is ‘closing loopholes in the modern awards safety net that allow employers to ‘roll up’ penalty and overtime rates into a single pay rate’ without fair compensation.
The Law Council contended that there are no such loopholes as the established lawful means to ‘roll up’ penalty rates into a salary require that an employee not be paid less than they would have under an Award, and that mechanisms are in place to prevent, identify and respond to instances of underpayment.
Rather, the Bill simply requires the Fair Work Commission, when considering an application to amend an Award, to ensure that the Award does not include terms that substitute employees’ entitlements to receive penalty rates or overtime rates where those terms would have the effect of reducing the additional remuneration that any employee would otherwise receive.
Last Updated on 02/09/2025
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