Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

As I think I've said previously, any agreement that has been reached at an enterprise level—an enterprise bargaining agreement or an individual flexibility agreement—won't be impacted by this bill, because those agreements have been reached between employer and employees, sometimes with the involvement of a union. This is about the award and the minimum standards. I think some of the concern seems to come from a fear that if—there have been cases, we all know them.

Several years ago, the commission reduced penalty rates.

I think they made a decision in the retail sector a few years ago to reduce penalty rates. This bill would not automatically change those penalty rates back to where they were. It would require a future application, presumably from a union, to increase penalty rates above the level they are currently set at, whether they've been reduced before or left as they are. So this bill won't overturn, if you like, previous decisions of the commission on its own. It would take a future application from a union to seek to introduce penalty rates. I reckon there's probably unions in the country trying to do that right now, just as, unfortunately, there are some employer groups trying to cut penalty rates right now.