Earlier this week, the Federal Government introduced the Fair Work Legislation (Protecting Worker Entitlements) Bill 2023 (Cth) (Bill) into the Parliament of Australia (Parliament).

The reforms proposed by the Bill focus on making unpaid parental leave (UPL) entitlements more flexible, providing additional rights to employees in relation to superannuation entitlements, and confirming that migrant workers are entitled to the benefit of the Fair Work Act 2009 (FW Act) regardless of their immigration status.

Contrary to expectations, the Bill does not propose any changes to the process for the four-yearly reviews of modern awards (although we expect that changes to that process will be introduced into Parliament later this year). Below is a summary of the key proposed changes.

UPL

The proposed changes relating to UPL entitlements are intended to provide greater alignment with the Paid Parental Leave Act 2010 and provide employees with significantly more flexibility as to how they utilise their entitlements.

Flexible UPL was introduced into the FW Act in 2020 and allows employees to take a portion of their parental leave in a more flexible manner, including via single-day absences.

The Bill proposes to broaden access to UPL by:

• Allowing parents to commence UPL at any time in the 24 months following the birth or placement of their child.
• Increasing the amount of flexible UPL from 30 days to 100 days (or a higher number of days if prescribed by regulation).
• Giving pregnant...

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