New laws to criminalise deliberate wage theft by an employer against an employee have recently been introduced in Queensland. The new laws also provide a simple, quick and low-cost process for wage recovery claims These changes respond to the findings and recommendations of a 2018 Queensland Parliamentary Committee inquiry into wage theft in Queensland and the inquiry report A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work? Exposing the true cost of wage theft in Queensland. The Committee found that wage theft is widespread, affecting around 437,000 (approximately one in five) Queensland workers each year and costing more than $1 billion every year in unpaid or underpaid wages.
