Compliance and enforcement

We promote compliance with Australian workplace laws and provide education about rights and responsibilities at work.

On this page:

What we do

We choose when and how to allocate our resources to achieve the best results for the Australian community. Our agency priorities and Compliance and enforcement policy inform these decisions.

We make the final decision on whether we investigate.

If we find that a workplace law has been broken we can use our compliance and enforcement tools to ensure compliance and resolve the issue. Read more in our Compliance and enforcement policy Compliance and enforcement policy.

Civil breaches of the Fair Work Act

Most of the time, breaches of the Fair Work Act 2009 (the FW Act) involve breaches of civil remedy provisions. This means that someone can be penalised or fined by a court if the court determines that they've broken a workplace law. We have a range of enforcement options for these kinds of offences which include:

Criminal offences

Some breaches of the Fair Work Act are criminal offences. This means someone can be fined or even imprisoned if they break these laws.

Intentional underpayment of wages or entitlements can be a criminal offence. Honest mistakes aren’t considered a criminal offence.

We can:

  • investigate suspected criminal underpayment offences
  • if we consider there is sufficient evidence, refer suitable matters to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions (CDPP) or the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for consideration and possible criminal prosecution.

We can use a range of processes and tools if we suspect criminal underpayment offences. These include:

Other examples of criminal offences in the Fair Work Act include employer or employee organisations giving, receiving or soliciting bribes.

If other potentially criminal issues are brought to our attention, we may refer them to the AFP or CDPP.

Read more about who we work with.

Related information