New legislation is to be introduced to criminalise the actions of companies that exploit and underpay their workers.
Announced by the Attorney-General and Minister for Industrial Relations, Christian Porter, the new legislation could lead to significant jail terms and fines for the most serious forms of deliberate worker exploitation and wage underpayments.
“Like most Australians, the Government has been appalled by the number of companies that have recently admitted short-changing their staff – in some cases by hundreds of millions of dollars,” Mr Porter said.
“While it’s understood the vast majority of these underpayments were not deliberate and were rectified swiftly, they are incredibly serious and border on negligence given we are talking about sophisticated organisations that should be capable of meeting their obligations under workplace law.”
He said a discussion paper outlining a range of reform options had been released and submissions were now being sought from all interested stakeholders to help inform any future policy changes.
“The Government is also considering options to strengthen the existing civil compliance and enforcement framework within the Fair Work Act 2009, to help deter other types of wage underpayments and non-compliance that do not meet the threshold of criminal conduct,” Mr Porter said.
He said some civil penalties had already been increased by a factor of 10, but it was clear to him that more needed to be done to motivate companies to improve their performance.
He said the discussion paper was informed by the report of the Migrant Worker Taskforce which recommended equipping the workplace regulator, the Fair Work Ombudsman, with the necessary tools to ensure compliance with the Act and the ongoing effectiveness of Australia’s industrial relations system.
The 19-page discussion paper can be viewed at this PS News link.
