New appointments to the FWC Expert Panel
Last week, the Australian Government appointed three new members to the Expert Panel of the Fair Work Commission (FWC).
The FWC Expert Panel is responsible for conducting annual wage reviews each year, issuing a decision and national minimum wage order for employees not covered by an award or agreement. The decision and order generally come into operation on 1 July of the following financial year.
The Expert Panel is made up of the President, three other full-time members, who are chosen by the President, and three part-time members. The part-time members’ sole function is to work on the annual wage review.
Attorney General and Minister for Industrial Relations Christian Porter announced the following appointments:
- The Hon Martin Ferguson AM – Strategic Director – Natural Resources at SGH Energy, former Federal Minister for Resources and Energy and Minister for Tourism from 2007-2013. His previously held roles include Chair of Tourism Accommodation Australia and Chair of the Advisory Board of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association
- Ms Adele Labine-Romain – Partner and National Transport, Hospitality and Services Sector Leader with Deloitte Access Economics Pty Ltd. She has previously been Executive General Manager Strategy and Research with Tourism Australia and Executive Director of the Tourism & Transport Forum.
- Professor Mark Wooden – Professorial Fellow and Director of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey project. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, a Fellow of the Global Labor Organization Network and holds Research Fellowships with the Institute of Labor Economics, Bonn, and the German Institute for Economic Research, Berlin and was previously acting Director at the National Institute of Labour Studies at Flinders University.
Minister Porter said, “the appointees all have a high level of expertise in economics and that their backgrounds in industry or social policy make them highly qualified for appointment,” Minister Porter said.
“The appointees bring an impressive breadth of knowledge, qualifications and experience to the Fair Work Commission”.
The part-time Expert Panel members have all been appointed for five years from 12 March 2020.
FWC extends date for Annual Wage Review submissions
The FWC has extended the closing date for initial submissions to the Annual Wage Review following requests from a number of interested parties.
The Australian Government, New South Wales Government, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the National Retail Association all requested extensions to make submissions as a result of the unexpected and significant demands created by the unfolding COVID-19 issue.
FWC President Justice Iain Ross granted an extension for lodging initial submissions to Friday 20 March.
Despite the ongoing and constantly evolving economic uncertainty as a result of the COVID-19 virus, there have been no further updates to the timing of the Annual Wage Review process.
Fair Work Commission using the science of ‘nudge theory’ to improve access and promote compliance
The Fair Work Commission has published the outcomes of its first behavioural insights project, led by the Behavioural Insights Team.
Titled Promoting compliance through behavioural insights, the report looks at how behavioural insights techniques could be applied to reduce costs and barriers to access for employers and employees who use the Commission’s services, and improve overall compliance with unfair dismissal and enterprise agreement lodgment requirements.
Behavioural insights – also known as ‘nudge theory’ – draws on cognitive science, psychology and behavioural economics to understand the unconscious biases and motivations that influence how people think, make decisions and behave, with a goal to help people make timely and informed decisions.
The President of the Fair Work Commission, the Hon. Justice Iain Ross AO, said applying behavioural insights to the Commission’s public information and processes could help reduce the anxiety, stress and confusion that parties sometimes experienced when navigating the legal process in unfair dismissal cases.
In relation to enterprise agreements, Justice Ross said that “Failure to comply with the relevant statutory requirements can lead to delays in the determination of applications to approve an enterprise agreement. Behavioural insights techniques can be applied to our public information to make it clearer and easier for agreement-makers to follow the steps required to make and lodge a compliant agreement application.”
Ed Bradon, Head of Policy for Asia-Pacific at the Behavioural Insights Team, said “Changing behaviour is as much about the system as the individual. Simple nudges that take into account how people actually behave can make a big difference. It’s great to see the Commission taking a lead and making it straightforward for their users to get it right first time.”
Recommendations about unfair dismissal applications include improving the online lodgement experience and creating tools to ensure parties clearly understand lodgment timeframes and the implications of exceeding them.
In the enterprise agreement context, the report highlights the value of providing tailored and specific guidance to agreement makers and communicating the benefits of lodging compliant applications earlier in the agreement-making process. These findings will form part of the Commission’s ongoing work in this area, including its extensive engagement with agreement-making parties.
The Commission has begun implementing several initiatives to improve its processes and the information it provides to the public, including:
- creating a centralised repository of key enterprise agreement resources, guides and tools on the website to minimise ‘friction costs’ in accessing information
- analysing common issues in enterprise agreement applications to inform engagement with agreement-making parties
- launching an SMS reminder sent to applicants with unpaid or incomplete applications for unfair dismissal and general protections matters.
Over the coming months, the Commission will continue working to implement other recommendations in the report, including:
- simplifying the employer form (Form F17) lodged with an enterprise agreement application
- expanding the step-by-step guide and checklist for making a single-enterprise agreement to make ‘salient’ to the important requirements at each stage of the agreement making process
- restructuring information on the Commission’s website regarding enterprise agreements by ‘chunking’ information into a series of smaller steps
- conducting user experience research to inform the structure of unfair dismissal information on the Commission’s website.
The behavioural insights project is an initiative of the Commission’s What’s Next strategy which focuses on improving access and reducing complexity for our users. Over the next 12 months the Commission will continue to expand the application of behavioural insights in its service design and delivery.
The report Promoting compliance through behavioural insights (PDF) is available here.
