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

Senator WATT (Queensland—Minister for the Environment and Water) (18:22): There are a couple of ways I will answer that. For starters, I don't accept that those arrangements are always mutually beneficial in the sense that both parties win. As I've already said to you, there has been evidence produced that shows that the elimination of penalty rates, even when rolled-up rates are provided, would still see workers' pay go backwards.

So it might be beneficial to the employer, but it is not beneficial to the employee to have their pay go backwards. More broadly—and, again, I know I've said this or similar before—the current laws make all sorts of rules about the sorts of things that can and can't go in awards. We've got the National Employment Standards, below which people cannot be paid.

We as a parliament and as a community have decided that some things are sacrosanct, and we say, and the Australian people have said, that penalty rates are sacrosanct as well.