A Museum of Labor’s IR Reforms (And What It’s Actually Costing You)

If you’re a small business owner in Australia and you’re feeling overwhelmed by the level of compliance, I’m not surprised. This is my full-time job, and even I’m struggling to keep up.

Six years. Ten new Acts of Parliament. Twenty-nine substantive law changes. Every single one of these funded by you, the small business owner. It has never felt harder or more expensive to employ people in this country.

Here’s the full rundown, so you’re not reacting to these one at a time with no sense of the bigger picture.

Exhibit 1: Ten new Acts in six years

Every time a new entitlement or a new piece of compliance lands, it comes straight off your bottom line. As if workers didn’t already have enough protections in this country. Chucking a sickie has effectively been rebranded as a right, and businesses are expected to just cop it. You can barely have a conversation with an employee about their absences anymore without it being a risk.

Exhibit 2: Their own system is buckling under the weight of claims

This is the part that should worry every employer, not just the ones who follow IR policy closely. Fair Work Commission lodgements hit roughly 44,000 in FY24–25, up 24% on the five-year average and tracking toward 50,000 next year. Unfair dismissal claims hit 16,500, up 11% on last year and 41% on the three-year average. General protections claims are now the fastest-growing claim type. FWC President Justice Hatcher has pointed to AI-generated claims as a major driver, with total Commission workload up more than 70% in three years. Median settlements sit at $4,000 to $6,000 for unfair dismissals, and around $10,000 for general protections, before legal fees and before you count the stress and the time.

Exhibit 3: Secure Jobs, Better Pay Act 2022

This is where the current wave really started. Pay secrecy clauses were banned, so staff can now compare notes on salary, fine in a unionised environment with EBAs, a genuinely bad fit for a small business. Multi-employer bargaining opened the door for unions to pull entire industries into one negotiation over things like leave entitlements and super, as if every business in that industry can afford the same deal. Fixed-term contracts got capped at two years. Flexible work requests got harder to knock back. Sexual harassment was written expressly into the Fair Work Act.

Exhibit 4: Paid leave keeps growing, and someone has to fund it

Ten days of paid family and domestic violence leave was added in 2022, including for casuals. That sits on top of 20 days annual leave plus loading, and 10 days of personal leave that accumulates year on year, meaning it can be saved up and then used all at once with a medical certificate. Public holidays in Victoria alone give employees 14 paid days off a year where they generate no work. Long service leave applies here to casuals too, which is unusual internationally. Every day of every one of these is a cost you carry, not the government.

Exhibit 5: Closing Loopholes, twice

The 2023 and 2024 Acts brought in same job, same pay for labour hire workers. Wage and super theft were criminalised, though not one business has actually been charged under it yet. Union delegate rights were formalised, with expanded right of entry for WHS reps. Casual employment was redefined with a new “employee choice” pathway. The right to disconnect was enshrined in law. Engaging a genuine contractor now comes with more red tape, and the line for what counts as “genuine” keeps moving.

Exhibit 6: More, funded the same way

The CFMEU’s construction and general division was placed into administration in 2024. Payday super starts from 1 July 2026, employers now have to pay super at the same time as wages instead of quarterly. Paid Parental Leave has been extended to 26 weeks by mid-2026, with super now paid on it from July 2025. All of it funded by business owners.

Exhibit 7: It goes on

Small claims court caps were increased. A positive duty was placed on employers to prevent sexual harassment, enforceable by the Human Rights Commission from December 2023. New laws around psychosocial hazards landed. Superannuation was added as a National Employment Standard from January 2024. Migrant worker protections were strengthened regardless of visa status. The Workplace Gender Equality Amendment now has WGEA publishing employer-level gender pay gap data for businesses with 100+ staff.

Exhibit 8: What’s coming next

A new Fair Work Court is being consulted on, aimed at cutting the Commission’s backlog of roughly 44,000 cases. And on 7 September 2026, government released draft legislation to ban non-compete clauses for anyone earning under $190,100, ban co-worker non-solicitation clauses outright, and create cartel offences for no-poach and wage-fixing deals between employers. Consultation runs until 2 October 2026. Still a draft, not law, but it’s the clearest signal yet of where this is heading. Two more changes are already flagged for next year.

Why this matters

Every change is a great headline for the government. But look at what’s happening alongside it. Australia’s productivity has been stagnant to declining for the past few years, sitting barely above where it was a decade ago. Economic growth has slowed to around 2%, and on a per-person basis it’s gone backwards in several recent quarters. Private-sector job growth has barely moved, while growth in government-funded jobs has run at double-digit rates over the same period. None of that is small business owners imagining things. It’s in the data.

The other side of it

To be fair to the other side of the argument: the government’s case is that these changes lift wages and job mobility, and there’s real data behind parts of it, including research suggesting the non-compete ban could raise wages for the roughly one in five workers currently affected by one. Employer groups like the Australian Industry Group have pushed back hard, arguing the compliance burden outweighs the benefit being promised. Reasonable people land in different places on where the balance should sit. What isn’t in dispute is who’s paying for it in the meantime.

Frequently Asked Questions

With this many changes over the past six years, how do we know if our contracts and policies are actually up to date?
The safest approach is a proper compliance audit rather than trying to track every change individually as it lands. Given how much has shifted, pay secrecy, fixed-term contract caps, casual employment definitions, the right to disconnect, and more, a contract or policy written even three or four years ago is likely missing several current requirements. Get it checked rather than assuming it’s still fine.

What’s actually coming next that we should be watching?
The most significant one on the horizon is the draft legislation to ban non-compete clauses for anyone earning under $190,100, ban co-worker non-solicitation clauses outright, and introduce cartel offences for no-poach and wage-fixing arrangements between employers. It’s still in consultation until 2 October 2026 and not yet law, but if you use non-compete or non-solicitation clauses in your contracts, now is the time to understand what’s proposed rather than waiting for it to pass.

Is it worth trying to keep up with every individual change ourselves, or should we get help?
Given the volume and pace of change, most small businesses don’t have the bandwidth to track this reliably on top of running the business. The businesses that come through changes like this without a claim landing on their desk tend to be the ones who get advice proactively, understanding what’s changed and what it actually means for their specific contracts and processes, rather than reacting after something goes wrong.

Does the rise in Fair Work Commission claims mean we’re more likely to be hit with one, even if we haven’t done anything wrong?
The volume of claims reaching the Commission has increased significantly, partly driven by AI making it easier and cheaper to lodge an application. This doesn’t mean weak claims are more likely to succeed, but it does mean more businesses are having to spend time and money defending claims regardless of merit. Solid documentation and a fair process remain your best protection, since that’s what determines the outcome even if the number of claims filed keeps climbing.

Where this leaves you

Share this with every business owner you know. Not just to have a bitch about it, but so we remember what we’re up against, and what it’s going to take to change it.

In the meantime, waiting to deal with any of this until something goes wrong is the most expensive way to find out what changed. The businesses that come through this fine aren’t the ones with the strongest opinions about who’s in government. They’re the ones who know exactly what’s changed, what it means for their contracts and their processes, and who to call before something turns into a claim.

We deserve better. Until that changes, that’s what having someone in your corner is for.