Protecting your penalty and overtime rates!

https://linktr.ee/sharonclaydon

Sharon Claydon MP speech from House of Representatives on 30/7/2025

Deputy Speaker, this is the first opportunity I've had to congratulate you in your magnificent role as Deputy Speaker in the chair. I do wish to rise this evening to speak in strong support—unlike the member we just heard from—of the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025, which aims to protect penalty and overtime rates for Australian workers. This bill was introduced by my good friend and colleague the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, a woman who has undertaken extensive consultation. Some might say we had an entire election fought on some of these issues. Millions of Australians got to have their say.

This bill is a bill that goes to the heart of what Labor believes: fairness, dignity and respect for working people. It's a bill that honours the shift workers, weekend workers, early risers and late finishers—the people who work while others rest, who clock in at 4 am to bake the bread or sign off at 3 am after a long night working behind the bar. It's for the workers who spend Christmas Eves stocking shelves and Easter Sundays changing hospital beds. For too long, these Australians have been told their sacrifice doesn't matter—that their time isn't worth more than a Monday-to-Friday nine-to-five. This bill says the opposite. It says that your time does matter, and so does your pay.

This legislation delivers on a key Labor election commitment to protect the penalty rates of around 2.6 million modern-award-reliant workers. It amends the Fair Work Act 2009 to legislate protections that ensure that penalty rates and overtime payments in modern awards cannot be reduced or substituted by any other term that would lower a worker's take-home pay. It's a simple principle, really. Workers should not have their rights eroded under the guise of efficiency or flexibility—not when that flexibility only ever seems to benefit one side, and it's not the worker. Right now, there are active applications before the Fair Work Commission in sectors like retail, banking and clerical work—industries where workers are already underpaid and undervalued—that are seeking to trade away penalty rates. That's why this bill is so urgent. It speaks to the issues the member for Curtin raised. This is why this urgent bill needs to be before the House now. We want these changes passed and enacted so the commission can apply the new law to those cases immediately, stopping the erosion of pay before the damage is done.

Penalty rates and overtime are not perks. They are not bonuses or benefits to be bargained away. They are recognition of the time that workers spend away from their families, their friends and their communities, working nights, weekends, early mornings and holidays. They are compensation for working nights, when everyone else is asleep, for showing up on Sunday when others are resting or for saying yes to shifts on Christmas Day, New Year's Eve or school holidays, when, honestly, you'd rather be with your kids. When a nurse does a double shift and misses bedtime with her children, that deserves recognition. When a warehouse worker clocks out at 2 am and makes the long commute home, that deserves recognition. When a barista opens up a cafe every weekend while studying full time during the week, that deserves recognition. These are hardworking Australians who keep the country running. They deserve a system that fairly compensates them for this work. Penalty rates recognise that sacrifice. They say: 'Your time matters. Your labour matters, and it's worth more when it costs more.' That's why this legislation matters—because, in recent years, we have seen exactly what happens when workers don't have the protection of government behind them.

The Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025 ensures that penalty rates and overtime cannot be undermined or bargained away as part of enterprise agreements. This bill is designed to be simple, flexible and workable, providing clarity without adding unnecessary complexity. It makes clear that the safety net of minimum conditions under the award system is just that—it's a floor and not a ceiling. The bill strengthens the role of the Fair Work Commission, upholds the principle of no disadvantage and stops the erosion of hard-earned conditions under the guise of flexibility or cost cutting. It closes the loopholes, it restores balance and it sends a clear message that workers rights are not negotiable.

Full speech available here: https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_...