Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

This provision makes clear that this obligation is additional to any obligations that the employer has as part of their employment contract or industrial instrument with a worker. Your question is in terms of any renegotiation of that agreement in the future: under normal circumstances involving the Fair Work Act or contract law, can an employer seek to alter the terms as part of that negotiation? Of course the answer to that is yes. In accordance with whatever the term of their agreement is or the nature of their arrangements under the Fair Work Act or contract law, if they are seeking to renegotiate the provisions of that industrial instrument, that is clearly something that an employer or employees can put on the table as part of that process. But the provision here is in addition to whatever other terms are contained in those contracts or industrial instruments.