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

Senator KOVACIC (New South Wales) (12:05): What I want to get an understanding of is how the government justifies removing the ability for employees to agree to higher base salaries in lieu of penalty rates, when these arrangements provide income stability. I'll use another example. Many major lenders in this country, when they assess borrowing capacity for a home loan, will assess penalty rates and overtime rates as a lower percentage because of the variation, or the instability, of those hours.

Why shouldn't an employee be able to negotiate with their employer a higher flat rate that, on measure, they are delivered a higher base salary on, to provide them with that income stability? Why can't they choose to do that?