Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard

The Australian Fair Pay and Conditions Standard was a set of five minimum statutory entitlements for wages and conditions introduced as part of the Howard Government's WorkChoices amendments to Australian labour law in 2006 and then abolished by the Fair Work Act 2009 in 2010.

The five statutory entitlements the Standard dealt with were:

The Standard came into effect on 27 March 2006. The employment conditions and wages of employees covered by the Standard had to meet or exceed the Standard's provisions. Compliance was ensured by Workplace Ombudsman inspectors, with powers to investigate disputes and enforce valid claims.

The Standard was replaced by the National Employment Standards when the Rudd Government passed the new Fair Work Act 2009 on 1 January 2010.

Because the changes under WorkChoices largely relied on the corporations power under the Australian Constitution, the Standard did not apply to all Australian workers. It applied to all employees in Victoria, the ACT, the Northern Territory, Christmas Island and Cocos (Keeling) Island because they were already within the federal workplace relations system. In Victoria, the application of the Standard (although universal) was slightly different in terms of how wage rates were adjusted by the Australian Fair Pay Commission.

In other parts of Australia, the following specific categories of employers and employees were not covered by the Standard:

Some entitlements under the Standard did not apply to casual employees. Generally, casuals had no entitlement to annual leave, personal/carer's leave or compassionate leave. However, unpaid parental leave was available to eligible casual employees. Casuals were also eligible for unpaid carer's leave. In return for having no annual leave or personal leave entitlements, casuals without an entitlement under an industrial instrument were guaranteed a minimum casual of 20%.

The Standard provided for a guaranteed maximum of 38 ordinary hours of work per week. It allowed for an averaging of an employee's weekly hours of work over a 12-month period by written agreement between the employer and employee. Employees could also be asked to work reasonable additional hours and had the right to refuse to work hours not considered 'reasonable'. The question of what constituted 'reasonable' depended on the particular circumstances of the employee, but included factors such as any risk to the employee's health or safety, the hours worked by the employee in the previous four weeks, the notice given by the employer of the requirement to work the additional hours, and the notice given by the employee of the refusal to work those hours, and the operational requirements of the business.

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