Wage-Hour Laws Increase Australian Payroll Complexity

Australia’s National Employment Standards are the base of a complex wage-hour system contrasted with a much simpler tax system, the head of Australia’s payroll association said May 12.

The NES is a set of 12 minimum employment conditions set out in the Fair Work Act 2009, said Jason Low, CEO of The Association for Payroll Specialists.

The standards are based on a 38-hour week and also include several types of leave, public holidays, flexible work arrangements, and termination protections, Low said.

Flexible work arrangements can be requested by employees who are parents or carers, disabled, at least age 55, or have experienced family or domestic violence, Low said. The employer is required to consider the request and can refuse on “reasonable business grounds.” The employee can then go to the Fair Work Ombudsman, one of the agencies enforcing the Fair Work Act, Low said. “You really should do it unless it is absolutely impossible,” Low said of providing accommodations.

Included under the NES are casual employees, who are like part-time employees but do not have set hours or guaranteed ongoing employment, and who work for an employer as needed with fewer entitlements than standard employees, Low said. They can request to move to permanent employment after working with an employer for six months, or 12 months for small businesses, he said.

Casual employees make the request because they “don’t get annual leave, they don’t get sick leave, and they don’t get paid for public holidays, so they miss out on a lot of things,” Low said. However, casual employees do receive casual loading, or an extra 25% on top of their standard wages, to make up for fewer entitlements, he said.

Low spoke at PayrollOrg’s 44th Payroll Congress in Nashville, Tennessee.

A newer type of leave required under the NES is family or domestic violence leave. “The rules around this one are really, really strict,” Low said.

In particular, domestic violence leave is not allowed to be reported as leave on payslips in order for it to seem as if the employee is working during that period and deceive abusive partners who may be monitoring payslips, Low said.

Additionally, personal/carer’s leave, the equivalent of sick leave, can be used to care for anyone in an employee’s household such as a roommate and not necessarily a family member, Low said.

Beyond the NES, Australia’s system of awards set minimum rates of pay and employment conditions for the types of employees they cover, Low said. An employer may be covered by multiple awards, such as the Road Transport & Distribution Award for truck drivers or the Clerks—Private Sector Award for administrative staff, and is responsible for knowing each of their provisions, Low said.

Awards can contain many different possible minimum wage rates, Low said, using the Restaurants Award as an example. The award covers 24 types of workers and 13 types of employment, resulting in over 4,000 possible rates as the award also lists pay rates for Saturdays, Sundays, Christmas Day, other public holidays, late night or early morning work, and overtime on both weekdays and weekends, he said.

In response to a question as to whether all employees are paid monthly, Low said “monthly is typically office workers” and other workers, such as those in factories, construction, retail, or restaurants, are paid weekly or fortnightly.

The right to disconnect was introduced for all employees in 2025. The right is governed by individual awards and may involve owing pay to employees if they are contacted outside of work hours, Low said.

Contrasting with the numerous wage and hour requirements employers have to keep up with, federal income tax is simply remitted to the Australian Taxation Office, Low said. “We have one tax to submit to one federal body. No federal, state, local taxes, just one tax goes to one government body,” he said.

Payday Super

Australia’s superannuation program requires employers to make contributions to employees’ retirement accounts maintained with superannuation funds. Contributions are made quarterly, but starting July 1 contributions will be paid and reported at the same time as wages are paid, known as payday super, Low said.

One reason for introducing payday super is that “a lot of people aren’t all that engaged with their superannuation” and are not checking to see if contributions are being made correctly, so the system will act as a compliance measure, Low said. When the system comes into effect, superannuation funds will report data on contributions to the ATO, which will match it with data from the Single Touch Payroll reporting system, he said.

Australia’s Department of the Treasury previously estimated that payday super would take three years after legislation was passed to fully implement and work out issues, but this timeline is in fact only eight months because legislation was passed in November 2025, Low said. “There’s a lot we don’t know about this,” he said, adding that he is on the committee working with the ATO on implementation.