The Business Council of Australia (BCA) has provided a reply to the submission of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) dated 1 November 2024 (ACTU Submission). We adopt and maintain our submission filed on 1 November 2024 (BCA First Submission).

We observe that the ACTU has proposed substantial amendments to each of the model terms for enterprise agreements (EA). Many of these changes include prescriptive and detailed obligations on employers, or cross-reference technical provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (FW Act), or other legislation altogether, such as the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 (Cth). In our view, this approach departs from the intention that the model terms “act as a safety net” for employees. It creates added complexity for both employers and employees to understand the model terms, particularly with respect to the legislative cross-referencing, and is inconsistent with the role of the terms as ‘models’ that should be easily applied to EAs across different industries for employers ranging from small to large. Overly prescriptive, onerous and legalistic model terms, such as the amended terms proposed in the ACTU Submission, would depart from the object of Part 2-4 of the FW Act, which require that those provisions are to provide a “simple, flexible and fair” framework for enterprise bargaining “that deliver productivity benefits,” and do not in our view, represent best practice workplace relations.

In reality, the model terms act as a minimum standard from which additional benefits or obligations are achieved via the bargaining process. This is another reason we are in support for taking a simplistic and flexible approach in drafting the model terms, with additional prescription or requirements able to be bargained for where agreed between the parties and appropriate to their circumstances. Fairness with respect to the regulatory impost on employers should also be considered.

Read our full submission here.