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

Senator KOVACIC (New South Wales) (12:10): I think the question that I'm thinking about here is in relation to EBAs and IFAs, which is a different matter and relates more to larger organisations, but I will come back to that later. My concern in relation to this is that this government states that it supports flexibility. There are many people now, as we saw during the election period, talking about the importance of workplace flexibility—in particular, working from home—and of negotiating those terms with their employers.

My concern is how this bill, which becomes incredibly proscriptive in relation to certain elements, aligns with the government's stated support of workplace flexibility, particularly as it comes to an employee and employer being able to come to a mutual agreement.