Employment Update - Proposed Amendments To The Workplace Relations Act 1996

A new Fairness Test for workplace agreements

The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Joe Hockey, has introduced into the House of Representatives the Workplace Relations Amendment (A Stronger Safety Net) Bill 2007. This Bill, likely to be enacted before the end of June 2007, introduces a new fairness test to be applied to certain workplace agreements.

The Bill also replaces the Employment Advocate and his office with the Workplace Authority Director and the Workplace Authority and the Office of Workplace Services with the Workplace Ombudsman and the Office of the Workplace Ombudsman.

What is the new fairness test?

The new fairness test requires the Workplace Authority Director (WAD) to decide whether certain AWAs and collective agreements fairly compensate employees when protected award conditions are excluded or modified. The protected award conditions are those set out in the Act, although outworker conditions are excluded from the new test because they already