From a push to increase minimum annual leave to calls for shorter standard hours and tighter rostering rules, unions are using the NES inquiry to re‑set the baseline for working time and flexibility
Australia’s National Employment Standards (NES) are undergoing their first dedicated review since they commenced 16 years ago, with various groups and individuals using the inquiry to push for substantial changes to working time, leave and redundancy settings.
The review has already been flagged to practitioners as one of the headline regulatory developments HR will need to track in 2026.
The public inquiry, underway today (1 May), is having the voices of unions, industry bodies, experts, legal practitioners and more to determine whether the NES are operating as intended and whether they remain adequate in light of contemporary work patterns, including unpaid overtime, seven‑day trading, complex shift systems and the growth of AI‑driven rostering.
A major theme running through submissions is the need to fix parts of the NES that are no longer working as intended, particularly for workers with non‑standard patterns of hours.
Unions argue that gaps and inconsistencies in the current framework mean some employees miss out on entitlements they were meant to receive or find that the real value of their entitlements erodes once modern shift patterns and rostering practices are taken into account.
There is strong pressure for the safety net to operate more...
Image: Facebook/SAPS The IDAC has rubbished rumours that it has a J50 warrant of arrest for KZN provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi as “false”. This comes after re...