Summary

Amends the: Fair Work Act 2009 and Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 to abolish the Registered Organisations Commission and provide for transitional arrangements; Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009 to apply certain provisions of the Regulatory Powers (Standard Provisions) Act 2014; Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Act 2016 to: abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and provide for transitional arrangements; repeal the Code for the Tendering and Performance of Building Work 2016; and rename the Act to the Federal Safety Commissioner Act 2022; Fair Work Act 2009 to: amend the objects of the Act to include the promotion of job security and gender equity; guide the Fair Work Commission (FWC) in its consideration of equal remuneration and work value cases; establish a Pay Equity Expert Panel and a Care Community Sector Expert Panel to determine equal remuneration cases and certain award cases; prohibit pay secrecy; prohibit sexual harassment in connection with work; add the protected attributes of breastfeeding, gender identity and intersex status to the existing anti-discrimination provisions; limit the use of fixed term contracts; expand the circumstances in which an employee may request flexible work arrangements and empower the FWC to resolve disputes regarding flexible work arrangements; amend the requirements for approval of an enterprise agreement; simplify the process for initiating bargaining in certain circumstances; amend the Better Off Overall Test; enable the FWC to vary enterprise agreements to correct errors, defects or irregularities; provide for a new intractable bargaining declaration scheme; amend certain processes relating to industrial action and Protected Action Ballots; remove limitations on access to the low-paid bargaining stream and the single-interest employer authorisation stream; amend provisions relating to making multi-enterprise agreements (to be known as cooperative workplace agreements); amend small claims procedures to enable unpaid entitlement recovery; and prohibit national system employers from advertising employment at a rate of pay that would contravene the Act; Fair Work Act 2009 and Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Act 2009 to provide that the FWC can only terminate an agreement that has nominally expired on the unilateral application of a party in limited circumstances; Fair Work (Transitional Provisions and Consequential Amendments) Act 2009 to provide for the sunsetting of all remaining transitional instruments; and Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 to update the worker's compensation presumptive liability provisions for firefighters. Also makes consequential amendments to four Acts and repeals the Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Act 2016 and Building and Construction Industry Improvement (Consequential and Transitional) Act 2005.