On 30 June 2026, the Australian Parliament passed the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Building Cooperative Workplaces No. 1) Bill 2026, which amends the Fair Work Act 2009 (Fair Work Act) to:

• Introduce measures to enable the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to deal with unfair dismissal, general protections and certain other applications more promptly.
• Allow the Commonwealth to discriminate when procuring or providing products and services, and when making or administering a grant of financial assistance, in favour
  of businesses whose employees are covered by:

• an enterprise agreement,
• a particular kind of enterprise agreement, or
• an enterprise agreement that covers a union.

• Allow parties to an existing supported bargaining agreement to obtain a subsequent supported bargaining authorisation to commence bargaining for a new supported bargaining agreement without the need to re-establish eligibility.
• Amend the intractable bargaining provisions to give more rights to unions and employees.
• Provide for a separate Road Transport Contractor High Income Threshold for regulated road transport contractors, to be set by regulation.

In our public statements and representations to the Government, Australian Industry Group expressed strong opposition to the proposal that the Government will be allowed to discriminate against businesses without an enterprise agreement or an enterprise agreement with a union. Despite our representations, the Government’s Bill was passed with the support of the Australian Greens.