Australian Federal Election 2025: Employment policies

One area where the Coalition is proposing sweeping reforms is in relation to the CFMEU and the allegations of corruption and lawlessness in the building and construction sector.

The Coalition has made the cleaning up of the CFMEU and the construction industry a major pillar of its economic election pitch and has argued that the continuing spate of allegations arising out of the CFMEU indicates that the current government’s response in appointing an administrator to run the Union is not working and has been ineffective in cleaning up the sector.

The Coalition is proposing the following policies to come down harder on the CFMEU and unlawful conduct in the construction sector:

• reintroduce the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), being the construction industry industrial watchdog that had commenced high-profile prosecutions against the CFMEU and secured millions of dollars in fines for unlawful conduct before it was abolished by the Albanese Government in 2023;
• reestablish the Registered Organisations Commission (ROC) that served as the regulatory body responsible for Registered Organisations under the Fair Work Act. The ROC regulated bodies such as trade unions and provided oversight over their officeholders, finances, and officials; 
• introduce US-style “RICO” national racketeering laws that would crack down on criminal structures and unlawful arrangements that have developed amongst organised crime groups, construction firms and union figures;
• introduce legislation to deregister the CFMEU; and
• provide the Australian Federal Police with additional resources to stand up a new  taskforce to crack down on organised crime in the construction industry.

In response to these proposals, the Albanese Government has brushed off any calls for the deregistrgation of the Union. IR Minister Murray Watt responded to these calls by labelling them as reckless and he stated that deregistration would only result in giving the Union back to same criminal elements who could then operate the union without any regulation or oversight. Should the Coalition find itself in minority government, it may find sympathetic ears to some of its proposals to clean up the CFMEU, especially from Jacqui Lambie. Senator Lambie voted with the Coalition to place the union into administration, and was a key advocate for the Bill that would allow the CFMEU's manufacturing division to demerge from the broader Union (a Bill that was vigorously opposed by the Union at the time).

Peter Dutton has made clear that an incoming Coalition government would move to restore the previous definition of a causal employee. The previous definition was contained at section 15A(1) of the Fair Work Act and provided that a causal worker was one is who is offered, and accepts, employment on that basis that there is no firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work, and the employee would be entitled to a casual rate of pay under their enterprise agreement, modern award or employment contract. This definition was introduced by the Morrison Government following the High Court’s landmark Rossato judgment that gave primacy to the written terms of the contract between the parties when determining the legal status of an employee. The Albanese Government overturned this approach as part of its Closing Loopholes reform package and replaced the previous contract-centric approach with a definition that requires an assessment of the totality of the employment relationship and a multitude of factors that may give rise to either a casual or permanent relationship. The Coalition has reiterated that the new definition does nothing except create unnecessary uncertainty, especially for small businesses, and sees it as a fundamental attack on the ability of businesses to engage casuals.

The Coalition has confirmed that it will repeal the Right to Disconnect (RTD) laws introduced under the Albanese Government should it form government. These laws provide employees with a right to ignore unreasonable out-of-hours contact from their employer and third parties, and listed certain factors that employees and employers could rely on to determine whether the out of hours contact was unreasonable in the circumstances. Employers can also apply to the FWC for an order that employees respond to out of hours contact that is reasonable.

The Coalition maintains that these laws have added “complexity and confusion” to the workplace, especially for small business and have made clear that the RTD regime, including the corresponding RTD modern award terms and the RTD Fair Work Commission dispute and arbitration process, will be repealed should the Coalition be returned to government.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has confirmed that a re-elected ALP Government would ban non-compete clauses for workers earning below the High-Income Threshold, currently set at $175,000 per year and indexed annually. This reform is one of a suite of measures that the Treasurer hopes will lift competition and productivity in the economy. The announcement was made in the Treasurer’s Budget Speech, where he stated that this reform would “lift productivity, reduce inflation and improve GDP by $5 billion” as well as increase wages by 4%.

Restraint of trade clauses generally take the form of non-competition, non-solicitation and non-dealing terms inserted into an employee’s contract of employment. These terms place post-employment restrictions on a worker’s ability to enter new employment or start a business within a particular time period or geographic location. Currently, these types of clauses are only enforceable to the extent that they are reasonably necessary to protect the legitimate business interest of the employer, which is assessed by the Courts on a case-by-case basis, with approaches differing across different States and jurisdictions. The starting proposition is that clauses which purport to restrict an employee’s post-employment activity are void for reasons of public policy.

The Treasurer has flagged that people in everyday professions are unfairly being captured by non-compete clauses that have led to workers in professions like childcare and hairdressing being subject to unreasonable non-compete clauses, which has created unnecessary burdens for these employees when they want to change jobs or start their own businesses. The Government argues that setting the cut off for the non-compete clause ban at the high-income threshold would ensure non-compete clauses are targeted at the more senior and managerial employees who have the corporate and industry knowledge that a business may want to safeguard to protect its legitimate interests with a non-compete clause, rather than restricting the labour mobility of workers without such knowledge.

‘Teal’ independent MP for Wentworth Allegra Spender has been a key voice in pushing to raise the definition of "small business" in the Fair Work Act from 15 to at least 25 employees. This is a significant reform proposal considering that the definition of "small business" contained at section 23 is crucial to so many functions under the Fair Work Act, including the:

• obligation to pay redundancy pay
• ability to be subject to regulated labour hire arrangement orders (‘same job, same pay’ orders) as a ‘regulated host’
• requirement to provide paid leave for union delegate training
• ability for an employee to access conversion from casual to permanent employment
• minimum employment period for employee eligibility for unfair dismissal (which is increased from 6 to 12 months for small businesses), and
• ability to terminate employees in accordance with the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code for the purposes of the unfair dismissal jurisdiction.

There appears to be significant momentum behind this push, including from fellow independent MPs  Kate Chaney, Kylea Tink, Zali Steggall, Helen Haines, Monique Ryan, Sophie Scamps and Zoe Daniel who have all penned a letter to IR Minister requesting that the Government lift the small business definition to “provide relief to small businesses across Australia”.

While the Coalition has not announced its response to this proposal, Minister Watt has ruled out changing the definition, refuting that current laws are stifling business. The ACTU has also come out to strongly oppose the proposed change, stating that changing the small business definition would “negatively affect way more people than it would benefit."

The Greens are pushing for the right to move to a compressed four-day work week for employees across the economy. The Greens’ latest policy would first allocate funding for a new national institute to investigate the benefit of employees working their ordinary hours over a compressed 4-day week, to determine how this can be achieved without significant declines in productivity.

This policy has been proposed following similar trials in the UK, Canada, Germany and Spain and are targeted at producing a “healthier, happier workforce” as a result of a shorter work week. The ALP Government and Coalition have not commented on or endorsed the Greens’ proposal.