9.11. Legislation and Regulations

The Fair Work Act 2009 (Fair Work Act) and the Fair Work Regulations 2009 are the main legislation Fair Work Ombudsman deal with.
They govern the employee and employer relationship in Australia.
They:

• provide a safety net of minimum entitlements
• enable flexible working arrangements
• provide fairness at work and prevent discrimination against employees.
  

The Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Act 2009 allowed certain parts of the Fair Work system to gradually phase in from 1 July 2009 until around 2014.

Visit The Fair Work system page for more information about the system.

The Fair Work (State Referral and Consequential and Other Amendments) Act 2009 and the Fair Work Amendment (State Referrals and Other Measures) Act 2009 changes the Fair Work Act to allow states to refer matters to the Australian Government to form a national workplace relations system. Before this, workplace laws were set and administered by most individual states. States kept their workplace relations powers over state and local government employee.

For other legislation relating to employment, check out Fairwork Legislation