The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Act 2023 received Royal Assent yesterday and certain key changes come into effect from today, 15 December 2023.

From today the Act empowers the Commission to consider applications relating to some labour hire workers. Equal pay for labour hire workers starts from 15 December 2023. Some anti-avoidance provisions will be applied from 4 September 2023

Furthermore, from today the Act amends the general protections provisions to:

• strengthen discrimination protections for employees who have been, or are being, subjected to family and domestic violence 
• introduce a general protection for workplace delegates when carrying out their role 

The Fair Work Commission is also authorised to make a model term for modern awards relating to delegate rights. The Act also makes amendments to provisions regarding protected action ballot order conferences. Modern awards are legal documents that outline minimum pay rates and conditions of employment, and there are more than 100 industry or occupation awards that cover most people who work in Australia.

Australia’s labour government announced the reforms earlier this year. The reforms include the ‘same job, same pay’ rules to crack down on the use of labour-hire firms, pushing for more protection for gig-economy workers, and criminalising wage theft.

Last week, key parts of the Bill that passed include closing the labour hire loophole, which will mean better pay for labour hire workers; and criminalising wage theft, which will increase the civil penalties for wage theft and criminalise intentional wage theft. Superannuation theft will also be included in this legislation.

The criminalisation of intentional wage theft and non-payment of superannuation will not take effect before 1 January 2025.

Further key parts of the Act will come into effect in 2024.