News and Insights

On 9 December 2020, the Fair Work Amendment (Supporting Australia’s Jobs and Economic Recovery) Bill (Bill) was introduced to the Federal Parliament by the Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations, Christian Porter. The Bill proposes

Key points In September 2017, the “Protecting Vulnerable Workers” laws came into effect, providing for maximum penalties ten times the usual penalties for “serious contraventions” of civil penalty provisions in the Fair Work Act, including

On 9 September 2020, Parliament passed a bill amending the Criminal Code (Queensland) (Code) and effectively making “wage theft” a criminal offence in Queensland, punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment. The bill is awaiting royal assent and l

The Fair Work Commission is in the process of finalising its decision to insert new model ‘annualised wage’ clauses into some modern awards as part of an ongoing review of awards. Most of these will take effect at the start of the first full pay

Key issues: The Commonwealth Attorney General’s Department has released a discussion paper and commenced a public consultation process relating to industrial relations reforms recommended earlier this year by the Migrant Workers’ Taskforce (MW

Key issues: On 7 March 2019, a report was released by the Migrant Workers’ Taskforce (MWT) regarding serious concerns of widespread and endemic exploitation of temporary migrant workers in Australia. Significantly, the MWT recommends, amongst a

People Risk: the Board Governance series The role of the board has not been subjected to as much discussion and scrutiny over the past 10 years as it has in 2018. Between the corporate and prudential regulators, ASX, proxy advisors, investor repres

On 28 April 2017, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia ruled for the first time that a professional services provider (an accountancy firm) should be held liable as an accessory for the unpaid award wages contraventions of its employer client. The

On 17 June 2016, in a very significant decision, the Federal Circuit Court of Australia ruled that a former company director should be held personally liable to pay compensation to the employees of the company for unpaid wages, as well as being order