Minimum Wage & Superannuation Increases 2025

 

In preparation for your planning for the financial year ahead, we wanted to share some important legislative and wage increase updates with you.

Minimum wage & superannuation increases

The Fair Work Commission has announced a 3.5% increase to the National Minimum Wage and minimum award wages from 1 July 2025.

Superannuation also increases to 12% from 1 July 2025.

Now is a great time to review staff remuneration and pay practices to ensure you’re compliant with minimum wage, other wage or award requirements and payroll requirements.

Please reach out if you’re interested in support with a wage audit, conducting the required better off overall tests and review of your pay practices. This includes looking at your allowances, reimbursement rates, penalties and work hours practices – these can often be forgotten but are a key part of ensuring your compliance and avoiding underpayments!

This year there were several changes to allowances – such as kilometre reimbursement, leading hand or first aid allowances etc – and this all needs to be taken into consideration when working out whether your staff are better off overall on flat hourly rates or salaried arrangements.

New Privacy Laws in WA and Australia

Recent legislative reforms have significantly reshaped the privacy landscape.

In WA we saw the enactment of the Privacy and Responsible Information Sharing Act 2024 (PRIS Act) and amendments to the federal Privacy Act 1988.

There is a growing emphasis on explicit consent in handling personal information, as well as increased penalties for privacy breaches.

It’s important to stay informed and be proactive in adapting to these changes. This means reviewing and updating your privacy policy and processes and potentially your employment contracts, ensuring you adopt any new required practices and are clear on what’s expected.

Staff and management should be made aware of their specifics obligations, and ensure they understand they must continue to act in good faith and uphold individual privacy rights.

There are specific obligations depending on your type of organisation, so if you’re unsure what may apply to you specifically and would like some help please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.

In the meantime, to meet your obligations generally you must ensure:

• Obtain clear, informed consent: Ensure individuals are fully informed regarding the purpose, usage and storage of personal data or information, and have both understood and agreed to it. For any variation to the consensual agreement, including any intent to use personal data or information beyond the initial purpose, usage and storage agreed – explicit consent should again be sought.
• Provide options to withdraw consent: Individuals should have the ability to revoke their consent at any time.
• Document consent appropriately: Maintain records of consent, whether obtained orally or in writing.

Leave

Government paid parental leave increases on 1 July 2025 to 24-weeks’ pay at minimum wage rates for eligible staff.

There have been a number of changes in the last couple of years with regard to types of unpaid parental leave, so if you haven’t already, be sure to check your leave procedure remains compliant, and reach out if you have any questions or concerns.

The previous financial year saw a lot of changes with regards to:

• Classification and management of independent contractors
• Casual conversion practices
• Wage theft penalties
• The right to disconnect

Looking back & the year ahead

This financial year saw some changes with regards to:

• Classification and management of independent contractors
• Casual conversion practices
• Wage theft penalties
• The right to disconnect

This was a much quieter year and much needed relief from the changes in 2023, which saw us managing psychosocial risk requirements, taking steps to meet the proactive prevention requirements surrounding sexual harassment and bullying requirements were introduced, pay secrecy and competition restrictions were removed, domestic violence leave was introduced, and we were juggling the ‘Same job same pay’ and Closing the Loophole requirements.

Looking ahead – now is a great time to plan out those key HR review or action items for the year ahead. The key items we recommend including in your annual practices are:

• Annual review of core HR policies and procedures
• Annual review of employment contract templates
• Annual staff training on key HR policies, practices and obligations
• Annual Wage and Award compliance review/audit
• Develop a simple HR plan to address any key existing workplace issues or your strategic objectives

 

If you need any advice on ensuring compliance or building out your plan for the year ahead, please don’t hesitate to contact your dedicated PeopleStart consultant.