The Australian Government is considering disqualifying directors and forcing companies to publicly disclose underpayment offences as part of measures to tackle employee underpayments.
The Minister for Industrial Relations Christian Porter has released a discussion paper exploring further changes to tackle worker underpayments.
The paper comes ahead of legislation to criminalise the worst cases of underpayments and worker exploitation with significant jail terms and fines.
Apart from disqualifying directors of companies where significant underpayments occur, the paper also flagged the option of issuing adverse publicity orders that force companies to disclose or publish their offences.
The paper also proposes issuing banning orders to prevent companies from employing migrant workers for a prescribed period.
