18th Mar 2021, 2:29 PM – Senate Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia's Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill 2021 - Third Reading - Pass the amended bill

The majority voted in favour of a motion "that the remaining stages of the bill be agreed to and the bill be now passed with an amendment to the title." In other words, they voted to give it a third reading and so pass the bill in the Senate.

The bill will now be sent back to the House of Representatives. If our MPs agree with the Senate amendments, then the bill will become law.

What does this bill do?

According to the bills digest:

The Bill’s proposed reforms primarily relate to casual employment, flexibility under modern awards for industries impacted by COVID-19, the making and approval of enterprise bargaining agreements, greenfield agreements for major projects and compliance and enforcement (including responding to wage theft). The Bill’s amendments can be grouped as follows:

• Schedule 1 makes amendments to insert a definition of casual employment, provide for a casual conversion process and to address issues around ‘double dipping’ with respect to casual loading
• Schedule 2 makes amendments providing that employers covered by identified modern awards can offer additional hours to part-time employees and issue flexible work directions to employees
• Schedule 3 makes amendments to the current requirements around enterprise agreements including in relation to the operation of the Better Off Overall Test (BOOT) and agreement approval processes
• Schedule 4 make amendments to allow eight year greenfields agreement for major projects
• Schedule 5 makes amendments in relation to compliance and enforcement including by introducing new penalties and criminalising certain forms of wage theft
• Schedule 6 makes amendments in relation to when the FWC [Fair Work Commission] can dismiss applications and vary or revoke its own decisions.
• Schedule 7 provides for relevant application, saving and transitional provisions with respect to other parts of the Bill.