Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for the Environment and Water) (11:50): I would expect that we would see this provision used more as a defensive mechanism by unions. If we were to see employer groups make an application to the commission to try to cut penalty rates from an award, this would stop that from happening rather than unions seeking to vary awards to do something regarding penalty rates.

It's more, to my mind at least, of a defensive step. As I said, there are literally cases in the commission right now where we're seeing employer groups trying to cut penalty rates from awards. This would prevent that from happening.