Fair Work Bill: Summary

The emergence of the Kevin Rudd led federal government following last year’s election was always going to bring about some drastic changes to federal industrial legislation that had been dominated by the Howard-era Workchoices regime. Shortly into the life of the new government the nature of those changes began to emerge, and the label attached to those changes was Forward with Fairness.

The implementation of Forward with Fairness commenced with the Workplace Relations (Transition to Forward with Fairness) Act 2008, a piece of transitional legislation that commenced in March of this year. The principal changes have been discussed publicly over a period of time but have now emerged more fully with the tabling in the House of Representatives of the Fair Work Bill 2008 on 25 November 2008.

Forms of both individual and collective workplace agreements remain available under the transitional legislation however the new system will clearly be centred on collective arrangements by way of both agreements and a renewed focus on Awards themselves. ‘Modern Awards’ coupled with National Employment Standards (‘NES’) will form the basis of the safety net for Australian workers in the new system.

Modern Awards

The Australian Industrial Relations Commission is currently undertaking a process whereby ‘modern awards’ are being created principally on an industrial basis. The Award modernisation process is one that has legislative backing under the Workplace Relations Act 1996 and was commenced by way of an Award Modernisation Request from the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations to the President of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

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