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

Senator KOVACIC (New South Wales) (17:53): Minister, earlier, when I was asking questions in relation to IFAs, you spoke about enterprise bargaining being another option, another alternative for businesses to enter into and, I think you noted, 'heaven forbid', perhaps engaging with the union. Could you tell me, Minister, how the government expects small and medium businesses who are already struggling significantly under a compliance workload and a cost-of-doing-business crisis, to afford the cost and time burden of enterprise bargaining as the only way to perhaps secure customised pay arrangements, given it appears that IFAs might be a problem.