Wage Theft Prevention for Care Employers: A Compliance Checklist

Since 1 January 2025, intentional wage theft is a criminal offence under the Fair Work Act, with penalties including up to ten years' imprisonment and fines of up to $7.8 million for corporations. For NDIS and disability care providers, the sector's complex Award structure creates genuine risk that underpayments occur unintentionally.

The Wage Theft Prevention Checklist

Award Classification and Base Rates:

• Have all employees been classified under the correct SCHADS Award classification level and stream?
• Are base hourly rates at or above the current Award minimum for each classification?
• Were rates updated for the most recent annual wage review?
• Are there any employees whose roles have changed requiring reclassification?

Penalty Rates and Allowances:

• Are evening, night, Saturday, Sunday, and public holiday penalty rates correctly configured?
• Is the "highest single rate applies" rule implemented (penalties are not cumulative)?
• Are all applicable allowances configured: broken shift, sleepover, first aid, uniform, vehicle?
• Are allowance rates current (allowances are indexed annually)?

Minimum Engagement and Hours:

• Is a two-hour minimum engagement floor applied for all casual and part-time shifts?
• Are part-time employees receiving their agreed minimum hours each pay period?
• Are overtime hours calculated correctly?

Leave Entitlements:

• Are annual leave accruals calculated correctly for all full-time and part-time employees?
• Is the 17.5% annual leave loading being paid when employees take leave?
• Are leave balances correctly paid out on termination?

Superannuation:

• Are super contributions being calculated on the correct OTE base?
• Is the current Superannuation Guarantee rate being applied?
• Are super contributions being paid by the quarterly due date?

Building a Proactive Compliance Programme

A checklist completed once is a snapshot. Wage theft prevention requires an ongoing programme: annual payroll audit before and after 1 July each year; triggered reviews on operational changes; employee feedback channels for raising payroll queries; and software and system governance ensuring every payroll system change is documented, reviewed, and tested before it affects a live pay run.

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