CHAFFER, Ms Nicky, Executive Director, Advice and Education, Fair Work Ombudsman DE SILVA WIJEYERATNE, Mr Anshu, Assistant Secretary, Equity, Entitlements and International Branch, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations FOGARTY, Mr Anthony, Executive Director, Policy Branch, Fair Work Ombudsman HALLAS, Ms Emma, Assistant Secretary, Employment Standards and Institutions Branch, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations HARB, Mr Diab, First Assistant Secretary, Employment Conditions Division, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations MADDOCK, Ms Alanna, Assistant Secretary, Safety Net Branch, Department of Employment and Workplace Relations VOLZKE, Ms Rachel, Chief Counsel, and Group Manager, Legal and Policy Group, Fair Work Ombudsman [by video link] WILLIAMS, Ms Joanna, Principal Lawyer, Legal Advice Team, Fair Work Ombudsman [by video link] Committee met at 09 :0 1 CHAIR ( Dr Garland ): I declare open this first public hearing of the Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations, Skills and Training for its inquiry into the operation and adequacy of the National Employment Standards. I begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the lands on which we meet today. I pay my respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples joining us today. In accordance with the committee's resolution, this hearing will be broadcast on the parliament's website, and the proof and official transcripts of proceedings will be published on the parliament's website. I remind all present that, as chair, I will ensure that proceedings are conducted in an orderly, respectful and courteous way. Those present here today are advised that filming and recording are permitted during the hearing. I remind members of the media who may be present or listening on the web of the need to fairly and accurately report the proceedings of the committee. I now welcome representatives from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and from the Fair Work Ombudsman to give evidence. Although the committee does not require you to give evidence under oath, I should advise you that these hearings are formal proceedings of the parliament. Consequently, they warrant the same respect as proceedings of the parliament itself. Giving false or misleading evidence is a serious matter and may be regarded as a contempt of parliament. I now invite you to make a brief opening statement—or statements, if you'd like—before we proceed to discussion. Were there some opening statements people wanted to make? Mr Harb: Not at the department. CHAIR: Great. I can see some shaking of heads from our virtual attendees as well, so let's launch straight into it. I invite committee members to let me know when they'd like to ask a question, but I may use my chair's prerogative to begin some of the questions here. Thank you very much to both organisations for the submissions that we've received. There's a lot of really important information to take in there. I think something that came out quite strongly, particularly from the department's submission, was the need for the National Employment Standards, being universal, to be really well understood by all Australians. In terms of that, how adequate do you think is the way that we communicate those employment standards to Australian workers? Mr Harb: I might start and at some point pass to the Fair Work Ombudsman, given the question around understanding of standards and the role of the Fair Work Ombudsman. CHAIR: Sure. I've got some questions there too. Mr Harb: We at the department recognise that the National Employment Standards are designed to be a set of minimum standards and, to that end, set out very clear principles for what should guide those minimum standards. It obviously sits within a system which we see as a pretty clear and simple layer of entitlements. That is within the context that the National Employment Standards are supported by the national minimum wage, the modern awards and then enterprise agreements. We think of that in our minds as a hierarchy of entitlements, with the NES sitting as the foundation and the others building on top of that. It does provide a pretty clear and simple framework for what the NES provides. But, in terms of understanding specifically and those sorts of questions, I might pass to Mr Fogarty, who probably sees that a little bit more at the ombudsman. Mr Fogarty : Thanks very much, Diab. I'll start here, but I'm very happy if any of my colleagues want to jump in as well. The Fair Work Ombudsman is the agency that's responsible for providing advice and ensuring compliance with the Fair Work Act, which obviously includes the NES as the underpinning safety net and core set of entitlements for workers. We go about that in a number of ways. Our primary source of information is our website, and I can talk through some of the data. We have really high levels of engagement with the community there. Really, our approach is to then funnel down. If people can't find the information required via the website, we've got a Fair Work infoline, which, again, has a much smaller proportion of people that only come to the website, which I can talk through. We also have a small-business helpline as part of the Fair Work infoline. Small businesses are an enduring priority for us as well. We want to ensure that. We know that, if small businesses get things right in the first place and understand it, then that means that workers are going to receive their entitlements as well. We also have a specific employer advisory service as well. Where businesses want advice from the Fair Work Ombudsman in writing, we can provide that service as well. Obviously, the other side of our work is on ensuring compliance and investigating. People can come to us for assistance, and we'll work through the issues. That can be resolved at dispute assistance, or it can go all the way through to litigation, depending on the scenario. It's difficult for us to holistically say that everyone understands the NES, but we can say, if we look at a data set from—it's a fairly long data set here. We've tried to get a longish picture so that you can get a sense of the numbers. It's from July 2022 through to 31 December 2025. During that time, there were around 153,800,000 web visits. The total inquiries during that time—people that have come through to our info line, small business helpline or employer advisory service—is around 1.1 million. Of those 1.1 million, we estimate around 25 per cent of those inquiries, roughly 275,000, relate to the NES. CHAIR: Where do the compliance issues that you encounter tend to be in relation to the NES? Mr Fogarty : A request for assistance is a kind of dispute. If someone comes to us and says that they don't think that they've been paid their annual leave or their personal leave or whatever it may be, that's what we call a request for assistance. The top four NES inquiry categories—again, for those same dates, 1 July 2022 through to 31 December 2025—are annual leave, public holidays, notice of termination and personal/carer's leave. Unidentified speaker: Can you say that top four again. Mr Fogarty : Sorry; there are actually five. There's one I missed, which is redundancy pay. I'll start from the top again. Annual leave is No. 1; public holidays is No. 2; notice of termination is No. 3; personal/carer's leave is No. 4; and redundancy is No. 5. CHAIR: Something that has come through in a number of submissions and certainly the department's submission, as well, is technical issues relating to zombie long service leave. I'm keen to hear people's thoughts about areas where we could improve the way that works for both employers and employees. Mr Harb : I'll pass to my colleague Mr De Silva Wijeyeratne to take you through that. There's a bit of history behind that as well. Mr De Silva Wijeyeratne : There is quite a bit of history. I think the starting point to understand long service leave as reflected in the NES is that the current settings were meant to essentially be a set of transitional arrangements pending the development of a national long service leave standard. In order for those transitional arrangements to work, they effectively preserved the long service leave entitlements that were in place before the Fair Work Act commenced. As a result, the way the arrangements work in very high-level terms is that, firstly, an employee who's covered by a premodern award is entitled to long service leave in accordance with those terms. A lot of the time, that will be by reference to state and territory legislation, but it depends on what the premodern award says. However, if an employee is covered by certain specified instruments—referred to in the act as agreement-based transitional instruments—then the long service leave is governed by those instruments rather than the premodern awards. Then, finally, if you don't have a premodern award and you don't have one of these transitional instruments, you fall onto the state and territory schemes. Going to your specific question, the secure jobs, better pay reforms that the government drove through a few years ago provided that transitional instruments would sunset at the end of 6 December 2023 unless there was an application to extend that agreement by the Fair Work Commission. So long service leave could still arise from those long service leave entitlements. It just depends. The impact of those agreements is dependent on certain conditions. For example, if the employee had sufficient service at the time that an agreement ceased to operate, then they may have a right to take long service leave under that agreement. So, if you take a step back, you'd say that there are challenges in working through and understanding what a specific long service leave entitlement may be. It can lead to a variety of different outcomes, depending on the specific circumstances, and you'll see that reflected in the submissions that have been put forward to the committee. CHAIR: In terms of having something that is supposed to be pretty universal and easily understood, like the National Employment Standards, that is probably not ideal and poses a level of complexity for both workers and employers in determining those entitlements. Is that correct? Mr De Silva Wijeyeratne : There are two policy implications. There's certainly a piece around the challenges that are experienced in determining what the relevant entitlement is, especially by reference to potential historical instruments. There's not necessarily a clear catalogue of what those instruments are and what they say. But there can also be inconsistent and inequitable outcomes that can arise as well. You may have, for example, different entitlements depending on which jurisdiction you happen to live in. You also may miss out on the modern long service leave entitlements that may be there in state and territory schemes, which may have more favourable outcomes than pre-modern awards and these instruments, but it also can be the other way around. Sometimes the pre-modern awards might have the more favourable entitlements. It just depends on what the instrument says and the way that the courts and tribunals ultimately decide to construe those particular entitlements, and that can ultimately determine your outcome. Mr Harb : Obviously, long service leave is governed by states and territories, and so the intent was really about negotiating to bring a national standard. I don't think we can comment on why that didn't happen or what that negotiation looked like given the length of time, but I guess that was the intent of what's in there. CHAIR: Thank you. I think that point of equity comes across quite clearly, too, in the submission made by the department. This is more on a technical issue: some submissions have discussed some inconsistencies that exist—or perceived inconsistencies, I should say; this is obviously the opinion of those who made submissions—around the imposition of a 12-month continuous service requirement in the act before an employee can access unpaid parental leave under the NES. But then there's also the return-to-work guarantee under section 84, but only for employees who've taken unpaid parental leave under the NES. So the argument that has been made by some people who've made submissions is that job protection—and obviously this would affect largely women workers, who we know are disproportionately under the NES—basically becomes a conditional protection of their jobs. I'm happy for you to take this one on notice if you need to. It's just something that struck me as coming through with a number of the submissions. Mr De Silva Wijeyeratne : Thanks for the question. The 12-month requirement is one that indeed has been raised as a policy issue over the years. It's something that is standard across a few different entitlements in the Fair Work Act, and there are probably reasons that could be put forward for or against that in terms of, for example, the stability of the employment relationship. But then, as you point out, there also may be concerns around access to those important entitlements, especially for women. I think that's a policy issue that would need to be worked through. In terms of the technical aspects, we're probably not in a position to speak specifically to the legal technicalities in that respect. CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Harb : I will just add to that, drawing back to our previous conversation. The NES is the minimum entitlements, the foundation. It is important to note that there are other protections that also apply for parental leave, particularly in modern awards or enterprise agreements that, as a system, kind of work together. I'm just pointing that out as well. CHAIR: Absolutely. Thank you very much. I'll leave my lot of questions there for now. Ms Coker, I understand you've got a question. Ms COKER: Thank you. I have one question related back to the chair's questions, in relation to employment and awareness. Do you liaise with unions to update them on the position and support them in actually being a conduit to workers and their knowledge of current conditions? Mr Harb : I might start and then pass to my colleague Ms Maddock. I think there are programs that go to supporting both employers and unions to engage with their members. Through the Productivity, Education and Training Fund, government funds both employers and unions to provide information, support and understanding of entitlements and really engage with people to help them where they need to understand changes in the law or other things that might be relevant to them. So that's probably the primary area of engagement. Ms Maddock, is there more to add to that? Ms Maddock : Good morning. Building off what Mr Harb was saying, the approach that the department takes into how it works with our key stakeholders is very much a consultative, collaborative approach, more broadly, in terms of our role in providing advice to government about the workplace relations systems, policies and programs. There are a number of ways in which we engage with unions, employers and broader stakeholders, whether that be through the development of policies or reforms going ahead or supporting the broader awareness and understanding of the workplace relations system. As Mr Harb was saying, we do have a number of programs. One primary one is the Productivity, Education and Training Fund, which provides funding to both unions and employers: the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Council of Small Business Organisations Australia and Australian Industry Group. Money is provided to them to support their members and the broader community in understanding and bringing awareness. Our colleagues at the Fair Work Ombudsman also have a range of activities that they do with these stakeholders. Mr Fogarty : Thanks very much, Alanna. We at the Fair Work Ombudsman have got a standing advisory group which is made up of the peak organisations ACTU, ACCI, Australian Industry Group, COSBOA and BCA. That is an initiative that the Fair Work Ombudsman, Anna Booth, brought in. It's also set out in our ministerial statement of expectations and our statement of intent. Through that advisory group, we work through a number of issues. We meet three times a year and all topical issues are discussed and worked through. Underneath that we also set a number of annual priorities, largely sector based, where our intelligence and analysis suggest we're likely to see the biggest issues or the most noncompliance, and we have tripartite reference groups for all of those priority areas. Ms COKER: You sound like you've got it all in place. I think, despite all that, young people are still often not aware of their rights. But we can only do our best. I have one other question. It relates to the fact that one of our key terms of reference is whether the NES are fit for purpose, considering that they haven't been reviewed holistically since 2012. With all the changes that are occurring in this place—in terms of work from home, parental and domestic violence leave, changes within casual and part-time work—are they still working? Are they fit for purpose? Mr Harb : I will pass to Ms Maddock. We agree with the premise of changing work and we set out some statistics in our submission that go to what that looks like. So I think you're on the money with that one, but I'll pass to Ms Maddock to build on that. Ms Maddock : I'll provide some comments to your question based on some of the things that we said in our department submission. The National Employment Standards, as we've discussed, play a really important role as the foundation of the workplace relations safety net and the minimum set of standards that apply universally—and the idea is that they're accessible and easy to understand—as well as being a set of minimum protections, essentially, that meets the community expectations as to what should be minimum sets of conditions of employment. Building on the NES is the modern award system, which provides the ability to provide further detail on the operation of how those National Employment Standards entitlements work. So you're able to provide further detail around when work is undertaken and the interaction with payments such as penalties and overtime. And modern awards are done at an industry occupational level. There are 121 modern awards, which reflects the breadth and variety of work that's happening across the economy. So being able to have that further detail in awards about how the National Employment Standards interact with that industry or that occupation is really important. Generally, we would say that the NES, as that basis of having those minimum protections, does work in that way. In our submission, we do provide some international comparisons around how our standards compare with other OECD countries, and, generally, our standards are quite favourable. But our submission also notes, as Mr Harb was going to, the changing nature of the workforce as well as some of the things that you picked up on around working from home and some of the characteristics and changes in the cohort of the workforce since its inception in 2009. For example, we know there's a greater proportion of women in the workforce, and how and where work is done has changed. There's been growth in the workforce, and, even in the different types of industries, there's been growth in terms of the health and care economy sectors. This is probably an opportunity for this inquiry to consider, given some of those changes in the workforce since 2009, those questions around whether access and eligibility for the standards are still meeting those community expectations of what minimum protections should be at its core. I'd also flag as well that it's also important for the NES to remain fit for purpose in promoting the object of the Fair Work Act, which, in 2022, got amended to include the promotion of gender equality and job security as well. As I said, this does provide an opportunity for some of those considerations that are coming through from the proposals as to how the NES can make sure it's meeting those community standards and expectations. Ms COKER: Thank you, Chair. Mr De Silva Wijeyeratne : There's also a piece to note that the NES hasn't remained static since it was put in place and there have been changes. Going to the topics that you raised, Ms Coker, about flexible work arrangements and also unpaid parental leave, those changes were made by government to address some of those trends. But, as Ms Maddock says, there's an opportunity to take a more holistic look overall. Ms Maddock : Sorry, I'd just further say, going off some of the more substantive changes that have been made in terms of paid family and domestic violence leave, that that really has come about based on, over time, how it's developed from being an award based provision, an unpaid provision, and then been built up through that consensus and strong evidence base to support it being part of those minimum conditions of employment. This is a good example of how the foundations of the NES have been able to be influenced by changes in expectations. Ms COKER: Thank you, Ms Maddock, and thank you, Chair. CHAIR: Ms Le. Ms LE: I've got to rush off to the chamber in about five minutes. But I'll just put the question and, if I do run out, I apologise. I represent a very multicultural community in Fowler, Western Sydney. We've got about 27,000 small businesses, and a lot of them are family run by migrants and refugees. It is just such a privilege to be on this committee because I didn't even know about the NES until we started to talk about this. I'm someone who's quite informed, but I was not aware of this. I'm very interested to understand that you've got the small-business helpline and the ombudsman. When I got elected in 2022, I talked to my small-business community, and I was the first person that brought the Australian small-business ombudsman to my community because I didn't even know that existed to engage with my small-business community. How do you engage with those multicultural-community small-businesses in areas like Fowler? I can't imagine them picking up the phone and using the small-business helpline, because a lot of them are running their own small businesses. I know it's a foundation for a lot of the entitlements and stuff. Is there a connection between what they're doing—do you know if there's a connection or not, and what work is there that's being done within the Fair Work Ombudsman and your department to really engage and inform the community? I know it's a long question. I've got to leave in a few minutes. If you can't answer it all— Ms COKER: It's a good question. CHAIR: They'll answer it and it'll be on Hansard. Mr Harb : I will pass to the Fair Work Ombudsman after what will probably be just a general level answer first from us. The Productivity, Education and Training Fund is the key point at which government funds small businesses to support their understanding of the workplace relations framework. That's through COSBOA. COSBOA does a lot of work to engage with small business. Ms LE: I know, because I've worked with COSBOA and BCA, that none of those organisations actually connect with my community in Fowler in Western Sydney full stop. It's because it's just two levels. We understand the small businesses that COSBOA and BCA represent. It's definitely very disconnected. They've tried to come out a few times, but we've never been able to really make that happen. Mr Harb : In addition to that, there's been funding provided by government to support small-business services. Generally, those services are delivered through the Fair Work Commission or the Fair Work Ombudsman. So this is probably a good point at which to pass over to the ombudsman. Ms Chaffer : I'm happy to talk to that. I acknowledge there's always more to be done for small business. We've mentioned the small business helpline. We have a dedicated small-business showcase on our website as well. We do outreach programs through webinars where we invite community members. We rely on our reference group representatives, as well as the advisory group members, to share the message for us. The resources that we develop we also try and co-design through that consultation process to ensure that we're meeting the needs. We understand small businesses are time-poor. So obviously everything we do is as high level and as plain English as possible. From an accessibility perspective, which you mentioned, again, there's always more work to be done, but our entire website and the small-business showcase are available in over 36 languages. That's an automated translation function. In addition to that, we have a dedicated in-language resource section. So, again, we listen to the community about the need for education resources. We try and respond to that. Where there's an additional need for our CALD community, we have those professionally translated as well. We try and do a series of different offerings as well. We've got our videos on the YouTube channel for people that are time-poor. We incorporate modules into our online learning centre so that small businesses looking for induction programs can just download the online learning courses for their staff. As I acknowledged, there's always more to be done. We have dedicated communications campaigns as well. We've got our organic corporate channels that we use, and we post several times a week. But we also develop tailored paid marketing campaigns to extend that reach to the small-business community in particular. Ms LE: It being in language is really critical. In a community like Fowler, they're not digitally engaged as well. So they would not necessarily turn to a website. So it's about face-to-face connection. That's why I brought the ombudsman out. They really loved that because they didn't know that that existed. Thank you so much. CHAIR: Ms Fernando, I believe you have a question. Ms FERNANDO: Yes. Thank you so much for being here. Are there any concerns that certain cohorts, such as young workers, casual workers or those in high-turnover industries, such as retail and fast food, are less able to access and enforce their NES entitlements in practice? Ms Chaffer : Thanks for your question. It does come back to education. There's always more to do, but it's about making those cohorts aware of the resources that we have available to then educate them and empower them. Through the number of inquiries we receive through our info line, we try to empower people to voluntarily comply with their provisions and so the resources we're developing are supposed to empower people to then raise those questions with their employers. Equally, we target the employers to essentially understand their obligations. I don't think that answers your question properly, but it's— Mr Fogarty : It's a hard one to answer. What we can talk to is that we've had really high levels of engagement via our website. I think I said before that there were around 153 million visits between July 2022 and end of December 2025. So we know that there are lots of visits going there now. Out of that, it funnels down to around a million inquiries—that's people that might call us. What you can correlate from that, potentially, is it's a fairly small percentage of people that are coming to us that need further assistance, have a dispute or an issue, or just want to double-check the information from the website or how it relates to them specifically. So it's difficult to say whether or not there are still gaps. I guess that's what might be explored through this inquiry as well. Ms Chaffer : We do certainly rely on our reference groups as well, which are targeted at our priority areas. Obviously, our union representatives and employer associations are a very powerful source of identifying information gaps but also assisting us in co-designing those products in response to the issues they raise with us. Like I said, that's been a really powerful channel to target and tailor the information for those industry sectors but also those customer segments. Ms FERNANDO: As AI and automation reshape jobs, how well positioned is the NES to manage increased job displacement and transitions such as in sectors like retail, hospitality and warehousing? Mr Harb : I'm happy to start on that one. It is a really good question and, again, goes to some of the statistics that we provided in our submission around the changing nature of work. We're obviously focused on how AI is playing a role in doing that as well. Probably the key piece of information I'd point the committee to is the government's National AI plan, which was released on 2 December 2025, I think—so quite recently. It really sets out how the government is positioning Australia as a leader in responsible, inclusive and innovative AI development and adoption. Part of that, for this department, is really how that impacts on the labour market and supporting safe and cooperative workplaces. There is an aspect of the National AI Plan that really is in this department's responsibility. Our focus is, obviously, across the department on lifting AI skills and capability for Australian employers—and that includes small business as well—and thinking about transition, in particular occupational transition. Without deferring too far, Jobs and Skills Australia released a genAI report that you might be across, which goes to providing a bit of an insight into how the rollout of genAI is impacting on workplaces and potentially what that looks like. Obviously the workplace relations framework is quite important to uphold rights and protections for employees. We consider the framework itself generally to be technology neutral and adaptable to different circumstances that AI might throw up. Obviously, that doesn't change that we are focused on understanding that better and trying to work through with our stakeholders how that might impact—and there are a couple of different areas of the NES that this kind of does intersect with. Generally the area of focus—which I think you've heard not only from submissions but also through previous conversations—is around consultation and transparency and what that looks like within the context of an enterprise and its adoption of AI. In terms of redundancy and transition, again, what role at the enterprise level do employers play in supporting people to transition from AI? The NES plays a role there in terms of its redundancy provisions. The other aspect I think is job redesign or job design, work intensification, discrimination and bias—those sorts of issues—that are inherently part of the existing AI. As it's still developing, obviously it draws on the biases that already exist in the system. That's an area of caution that we'd focus on as well. We're still working through those kinds of issues. We established an AI working group, which sits under the National Workplace Relations Consultative Council. We've had a couple of meetings since October 2025 on that really to work through those issues and understand what the gaps are. I think you've got a few submissions in from the community on these sorts of issues as well. So that's probably where a lot of our focus is at the moment. CHAIR: The previous iteration of this committee in the 47th Parliament undertook an inquiry into artificial intelligence and work, so it's clearly a hot topic. I might quickly extend some of this conversation from Ms Fernando's question. Obviously, there have been transitioning workplaces before artificial intelligence. This isn't new, regarding automation and other kinds of changes. So how has the NES dealt with that in the past? How has that been useful to inform this, if we're talking about the disruption of AI, potentially? We've had workplaces disrupted before, affecting redundancies and other kinds of entitlements and consultation et cetera—how has that been handled? Mr Harb : As I said, we're still working through what they look like from the department's perspective. As you say, transition happens over history, and it certainly will be something we'll look at. We haven't quite gotten to that, but we are looking at that. We are looking at the experience of other countries as well and what the international posture looks like in this context. CHAIR: But it hasn't come up before, in terms of other areas where there has been automation in the past with NES employees? Mr Harb : I think the uncertainty of AI and how quickly it could impact on jobs and redesign is unclear. Obviously, there are estimates that are quite conservative and limited in terms of the job impact, and then there are others which are quite high and a little bit more alarming. CHAIR: Sorry; just to clarify, I'm asking about the past experience of the application of the NES where there have been transitions in workplaces involving automation, for instance, for NES employees or other kinds of changes. I know it has happened. Mr Harb : I might pass this on to Ms Maddock. Ms Maddock: It's going to the point that the NES is a base set of— CHAIR: A safety net. Ms Maddock: Yes, a safety net of those entitlements. For some of those entitlements, around redundancy, for example, they've been able to be applied so that it applies consistently across all industries and all employees. Noting that the NES has been in its form since 2009, yes, the rise of digital technologies is something that has been happening throughout the economy since that time. But, yes, the NES has been there to act as that minimum standard, which, either through awards or through enterprise bargaining at the enterprise level, has been able to adjust or negotiate to adapt where specific changes have happened at an enterprise level, or at an industry level as well. Mr SMALL: Could I ask a very specific question? Does the department have the view that that safety net with regard to redundancy needs to be increased? Mr Harb : I don't think we have a view. I guess that's the role of the committee—to consider the submissions. It's your difficult job! I don't think we would— Mr SMALL: So that's not the department's view. Is it something you're looking at but that you don't have a position on? Mr Harb : We're engaging with stakeholders on that, probably in a similar way to the way you are here. We're at the point where we're trying to understand what it looks like and the experience of people, real people, on the ground. But, at this point, yes, I think that's not an area that we have a view on. CHAIR: Thank you very much for that. Does anyone else have any questions? Ms AMBIHAIPAHAR: Through you, Chair, in the space of noncompliance, you mentioned a little bit of a shopping list of annual leave, public holiday, termination et cetera. Are you seeing a pattern specifically through vulnerable workers? When I say 'vulnerable workers', I'm thinking of migrants, young people, casuals—also, is there a pattern within particular industries as well? Is there something emerging in that space that you could share? Ms Williams : I think, from a compliance and enforcement perspective in the Fair Work Ombudsman, we have an enduring commitment to prioritise vulnerable workers, which I think includes the cohorts that you describe. Unfortunately, with a lot of our priority sectors, even when we return, we find that there are still high levels of noncompliance. So I guess the key is trying to work on how we can improve those levels of compliance. In terms of our enforcement outcomes, litigation is our most high-level enforcement outcome, and we use that routinely—usually, focused where there is serious or systemic noncompliance. It is very often the case that it will be vulnerable cohorts upon which we take that sort of litigation. We have many litigations in the FRAC industry relating to migrant workers et cetera as well, so they can continue to be a thing through all of our litigations. Mr Fogarty : I'll go to that question on the specific industries. For the last financial year, so for 2024-25, the top three industries for disputes completed were accommodation and food services, which made up around 16 per cent of the disputes completed; construction, 14 per cent; and healthcare and social assistance, 12 per cent. Ms AMBIHAIPAHAR: Thank you. CHAIR: Mr Small. Mr SMALL: Some senators in this building are quite fond of carrying around the entire Fair Work Act and regulations, and the printout is about that high! Is there an opportunity, through this process, to skinny that up by a couple of hundred pages? CHAIR: The act does fall slightly outside this inquiry. Mr SMALL: I think, to Ms Le's point, it's sophisticated employers, as much as less sophisticated, small-business employers, that have really struggled with ensuring that employees are afforded everything they are entitled to through the NES and as it translates through awards and whatever. Can we reduce that complexity at all? Are you seeing opportunities there? Mr Harb : It is a good question. I'll pass to Ms Maddock for some more detail, but, at a high level—and I know you've already heard it through the submissions that you've received—there is inevitably a balance between how prescriptive you are in the Fair Work Act and the framework versus less prescriptive. That balance is: if you provide more detail and information for people to understand their entitlements, you can have a big book; if you provide just high-level information, you might have a smaller book but then you may not have a very clear set of obligations. It's inevitably the challenge of that balance. I know your submissions will go to that as well. There is an example—I'll pass to Ms Maddock—of how that has worked in the modern awards system. Ms Maddock : Yes. I'll just go back to the intent of the National Employment Standards. Broadly, they are designed and written in a way to provide a simple explanation of the minimum standards, so they don't provide for every scenario in which that entitlement might be used in a workplace. That's able to be dealt with in other mechanisms, through awards and enterprise bargaining and such. At its heart, the NES itself, when designed, was written to, as much as possible, just provide the base legally-enforceable core entitlements. The example that Mr Harb was discussing, in regard to the balance between what people perceive as useful or complex, is probably in regard to when the Fair Work Commission was undertaking a matter, in terms of reviewing some modern awards, in terms of that easier-to-use type of approach, and they'd previously done work in the modern awards system to rework awards into plain language as well, but what they were finding from stakeholders was that awards can contain classifications and pay structures. Some stakeholders would say that provides clarity; some people would say that's rigid and there's not the flexibility that they want. The outcome of that was there wasn't a consensus of the right balance to apply broadly across a certain industry occupation in an award. CHAIR: To build on that question, obviously there's a lot of work that goes into education and guidance and getting that balance right and making sure people understand both their entitlements as workers and their obligations as employers. But are there any particular areas in the NES that create recurring compliance challenges despite your best efforts? Mr Harb : Yes, and I think that's really the crucial role of the Fair Work Ombudsman in providing that. Ms Volzke : Going back, the example that was raised earlier around long-service leave is a good one. While it is true that most people do derive long-service leave entitlements from state based legislation, when people come to us at the FWO because of those transitional arrangements that have been referred to earlier, the first step that we have to do, when we're trying to assist someone with a long-service leave inquiry, is see whether they've got that derived entitlement from the pre-reform award. That's irrespective of the fact that we know that most people will actually be reliant on state based legislation for that entitlement. So that does add some complexity for us in administering and providing that advice, because we have to work through that step with every customer that comes to us for advice. CHAIR: Ms Coker has a follow-up question. Ms COKER: If there is noncompliance—are our enforcement tools, such as litigation and enforceable undertakings, sufficient to deter noncompliance, and is there more that needs to be done? Ms Volzke : Obviously, litigation is at the apex of our enforcement tools, and, with our strategic enforcement approach, we do try and assist voluntary compliance, and then we work up to the apex of that triangle. Ms COKER: Which is preferable. Ms Volzke : Yes, absolutely. And a lot of the time we are able to assist customers. Whether it's through voluntary compliance or assisted compliance, we've got a universal dispute-assistance function available to people who come to us so that we can assist, hopefully, in resolving their dispute. But I think litigation will always be an important enforcement tool, not only from a specific deterrence angle in relation to the particular parties that might be involved but also as a general deterrence where there is broad public interest in relation to a particular matter. A number of the submissions have raised particular examples. Obviously, we've got the ongoing Coles and Woolworths litigation in relation to annualised salaries. That continues to have significant impacts for everybody in the national workplace relations system beyond those parties to that litigation. Mr Fogarty : I think Rachel has answered that really well. The vast majority of our matters are resolved through that dispute assistance process. For those pointy-end tools—enforceable undertakings and litigations—we're looking for really exploitative behaviour that's occurred in those priority sectors. The vast majority of matters that we deal with don't have those behaviours. There is often a lot of emotion from both sides when they come to the Fair Work Ombudsman, when there's an issue in the workplace. Work is a very important part of people's lives. It's part of their identity. For small-business owners, they've got a lot riding on this as well. They've often mortgaged their house or what have you. So there's often tension when people come to us, but the vast majority of issues we resolve through dispute assistance, and our focus is on, if there's been an underpayment or an errant issue, trying to get that resolved to make sure that the employees are going to be paid accurately and correctly going forward and also so that the employment relationship can continue and be productive going forward. I think we had 70-odd litigations last financial year. But, as Ms Volzke has said, that is for that particularly exploitive behaviour or where there's a lack of cooperation with our attempts to try and resolve the dispute. CHAIR: I'm very sorry but I think we're going to have to end everything here because the bells are ringing for the House of Representatives. I'd like to thank you all for your attendance here today. There may be opportunities for us to put some questions to you on notice, and I hope that would be okay. You will be sent a copy of the transcript to request any required corrections. Committee adjourned at 09:55