Six Weeks In: Has Your Organisation Actually Adapted to the New Award?
On June 16th 2026, the NSW Industrial Relations Commission made the new Local Government (State) Award, endorsed by 89.94% of voting members. Six weeks on, the 12% pay increase - delivered as 4% from the first full pay period after 1 July, with two more 4% increases to follow in 2027 and 2028, is already showing up in payslips across NSW local government.
That's the part every organisation gets right, because payroll has to move or people notice immediately. It's everything else in that Award that I'd be checking right now, because in my experience it's exactly the part that quietly doesn't get done. Not from negligence, but because nobody owns it the way payroll owns pay rates.
Alongside the wage increase, the new Award brought expanded paid parental leave, a new leave entitlement (MyLeave), easier access to sick leave, stronger flexible work and work-from-home protections, new provisions specifically addressing the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace, strengthened union and delegate rights, fairer leaseback vehicle provisions, and greater certainty around reproductive health leave and fixed-term contract use.
Six weeks is enough time that "we're still getting to it" starts to look like risk, rather than a backlog. So ask yourself honestly:
Has payroll been checked classification by classification, or just at the level everyone assumed was right? Underpayments hiding in a less common classification, are exactly the kind that surface eighteen months later as a much bigger problem.
Has your enterprise agreement actually been checked against the new award floor? An EA can't sit below minimum award entitlements, and several of the condition changes; flexible work, AI use, fixed-term contracts - are the kind of thing that gets missed unless someone deliberately goes through it, clause by clause.
Has anyone reviewed the AI provisions against what your organisation is actually using? If you've introduced any tool - touching rostering, monitoring, recruitment screening or performance management, this Award now speaks directly to that, whether your policies have caught up or not.
Has your leaseback vehicle and fixed-term contract practice been looked at? Both get more specific treatment in the new Award, and both are the kind of long-standing local arrangement that drifts quietly out of compliance over time.
One more thing worth knowing, wherever you sit: this Award doesn't include a "no extra claims" clause, so it can be varied again during its three-year term. This isn't a document you check once and file away. And if you're outside NSW, the national Local Government Industry Award (MA000112) also lifted 4.75% this cycle, under the Fair Work Commission's Annual Wage Review, alongside a new national minimum wage of $26.44 an hour. The floor has moved everywhere, not just in NSW.
If any of those questions gave you a "not sure" rather than a "yes," that's worth a conversation now, while it's still a conversation and not a dispute.
If you'd like to discuss this or any other IR or compliance query, send me an email and I'll be happy to assist. penny.aronwitz@localgovernmentalliance.com.au
Written by - Penny Aronwitz, Principal, Legal Counsel & Advisory, Local Government Alliance
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