Proposed amendments to the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) will result in increased penalties for contraventions of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (the "Act"). Penalties for contravention of the Act are determined by reference to penalty units. The value of a penalty unit is set by section 4AA of the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth). A current penalty unit according to that section is $170.
The Crimes Legislation Amendment (Penalty Unit) Bill 2015 (Cth) (the "Bill") proposes to increase the value of a penalty unit under the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) to $180. This will increase the maximum penalty available for a contravention of the Act. For example, contravention of a term of a national minimum wage order currently attracts a maximum penalty of 60 penalty units for an individual and 300 penalty units for a corporation. If the bill is passed, the maximum penalty for such contraventions will increase from $10,200 to $10,800 for an individual, and from $51,000 to $54,000 for a corporation.
Further, the Bill proposes to introduce a scheme which implements an automatic adjustment to the value of the penalty unit every three years in line with inflation, meaning the Bill will likely have an enduring impact. If Parliament passes the Bill, the changes will come into effect on 31 July 2015. Given the substantial maximum penalties that corporations are exposed to under the Act, this amendment will have a significant impact on employers' exposure for contraventions of the Act.
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