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

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for the Environment and Water) (17:47): Again, I'm not saying that IFAs are the way for people to get that flexibility. They are an option, as are the other mechanisms that I was talking about before. Again, we need to remember that what we're talking about here is a bill that prevents the Fair Work Commission from cutting penalty rates in awards.

If employers and employees want to go and make different agreements, they're entitled to do that through that range of mechanisms. This is about the many employees across the economy who are employed in line with the award. This gives some security that in future their penalty rates cannot be taken away from them under the award.