Portfolio — 26 March 2026

The Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Ms Rishworth, led a concentrated day of activity on 26 March 2026, using both ministerial media releases and two separate House contributions to reinforce a single portfolio direction: protecting the wages and working conditions of Australia's lowest-paid workers while responding to global fuel cost pressures bearing on the road transport sector.

The most consequential development of the day was the government's announcement that it will lodge a submission to the Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review recommending an economically sustainable real wage increase for minimum wage and award-reliant workers — a cohort the Minister identified as approximately 2.7 million people, representing around one quarter of the workforce [TA-260326-dewr-4af43bcf3439] [TA-260326-dewr-62d9fb0023ba].

The submission deliberately does not nominate a specific percentage increase, a framing the Minister used to acknowledge the Commission's independent wage-setting role. In media questioning, the Minister rejected the proposition that a real wage increase above current inflation would undermine the Reserve Bank's inflation target, pointing to the Commission's use of multiple inflationary measures and the several months available before its 1 July determination [TA-260326-dewr-62d9fb0023ba].

The Minister placed the Annual Wage Review submission inside a broader cost-of-living narrative encompassing income tax cuts and cheaper medicines, and explicitly framed it as a consistent policy commitment unaffected by Middle East disruptions.

That commitment was reinforced in Question Time, where the Minister told the House the minimum wage has risen by more than $9,000 a year since the government took office, that the government has legislated to protect penalty and overtime rates, and that a record 2.7 million workers are now on enterprise bargaining agreements — the highest level since enterprise bargaining began [TA-260326-house-acd3ee5310f1:s157].

The Minister presented minimum award wage advocacy and enterprise bargaining reinvigoration as complementary mechanisms rather than alternatives, with particular attention to the workers most dependent on award wages: women, younger workers, and casual and part-time employees.

The second major parliamentary action was the second reading of the Fair Work Amendment (Fairer Fuel) Bill 2026 [TA-260326-house-acd3ee5310f1:s004]. The bill amends the Fair Work Act to allow the Fair Work Commission to fast-track contractual chain order applications when the minister has determined there is a significant national negative impact on the road transport sector and it is in the public interest to act quickly [TA-260326-house-acd3ee5310f1:s004].

Under current law, the Commission must conduct a minimum six-month consultation before setting such an order; the bill removes that fixed timeframe in time-sensitive circumstances, though consultation with affected parties remains mandatory and any order made under the urgent pathway is capped at six months' duration. Safeguards include a requirement that the Commission be satisfied an order will not unduly affect business viability, and a failsafe mechanism permitting parties to seek suspension of an order while the Commission considers varying or revoking it.

The bill has drawn support from the Australian Road Transport Industrial Association, the Australian Road Freighters Association, the Transport Workers' Union, and the Australian Trucking Association — an unusually broad industry-union coalition.

The thread connecting both legislative instruments and the media release is the same external shock: Middle East fuel price volatility. The Fairer Fuel Bill directly targets that shock as it flows through road transport contract chains; the Annual Wage Review submission explicitly insulates real wage advocacy from it. Together, the day's activity shows the Minister using the Fair Work Commission as the central institutional lever across both instruments — for wages through Annual Wage Review advocacy, and for supply-chain cost recovery through accelerated contractual chain orders.

The Minister also confirmed through a fuel supply taskforce reference in the media release that the government is coordinating with state, territory and industry partners on fuel supply more broadly, while stopping short of recommending working from home [TA-260326-dewr-62d9fb0023ba].