The Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Penalty and Overtime Rates) Bill 2025 seeks to amend the Fair Work Act 2009 to ensure that pre-existing penalty and overtime rates in modern awards are not reduced. This paper provides an overview of penalty and overtime rates in Australia, presents key issues and provisions, and summarises the position of...

This paper shows that employment growth in retail and hospitality has been far slower than in other parts of the economy (where penalty rates remained constant) and job-growth in the two sectors actually slowed by more than half after penalty rates began to fall.

This report forecasts the impact on workers' incomes over the next term of parliament under the two major parties' respective penalty rates policies.

This research puts a number on the total loss of wages that will be experienced by workers in the broad retail and hospitality sectors through the coming holiday period: $80 million this year, rising to $107 million for a similar period once the rate cuts are fully implemented.

This inquiry, the first completed by a Legislative Assembly select committee in many years, examined the impact on Victorians of the Fair Work Commission’s 2017 decision to reduce penalty rates in the hospitality, fast food, retail and pharmacy sectors.