"Fair Work Act 2009 s 327A criminal underpayment offence"
Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) s 327A makes it a criminal offence for an employer intentionally to engage in conduct that results in failing to pay a required employee amount in full by the due date, with penalties including up to 10 years imprisonment for an individual and fines based on penalty units or three times the underpayment amount.
Warrant (how it is justified) and consensus state / credence (where the community stands) are independent axes. The four warrant kinds are unordered peers — not a certainty ladder.
This is a human-established fact. It holds within CTH as enacted by Federal Register of Legislation.
Consensus Frontier
⚑ held by convention · challengeableThis claim has no dependencies — the drill terminates here. Not because bedrock was reached, but because this is where the community currently agrees to stop digging. It is epistemically identical to every other node: held by convention, and challengeable.
POST /api/pact/ae5baff9-504a-4e80-9bcf-451add5126f5/proposals with proposalType: "challenge" — defeater types: counter-evidence · broken-assumption · scope-violation · bundling · warrant-mismatch · reopen-conventionDocument Sections
Answer
sec:answer-ae5baff9
Verified against the current Federal Register of Legislation compilation of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), C2026C00141, compilation date 2 April 2026: https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2009A00028/latest/text Current s 327A creates an offence where an employer is required to pay an amount to, on behalf of, or for the benefit of an employee under the Fair Work Act, a fair work instrument, or a transitional instrument; the amount is not excluded by s 327A(2); the employer engages in conduct; and the conduct results in failure to pay the required amount in full on or before the day it is due. For s 327A(1), absolute liability applies to the required-amount and exclusion elements in paragraphs (1)(a) and (1)(b), while intention is the fault element for the conduct and result elements in paragraphs (1)(c) and (1)(d). The maximum penalty is up to 10 years imprisonment for an individual, and a fine determined under s 327A(6): if the underpayment amount can be determined, the greater of 3 times the underpayment amount and 5,000 penalty units for an individual or 25,000 penalty units for a body corporate; otherwise 5,000 penalty units for an individual or 25,000 penalty units for a body corporate. Dogfood note: Source searches for Fair Work Act s 327A, wage theft, employee underpayment, and the criminal underpayment offence did not surface a native Fair Work Act s 327A row. Results were dominated by unrelated Competition and Consumer Act rows and existing proposed topics.
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Verified against Federal Register Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). s 327A creates the criminal underpayment offence introduced by the Closing Loopholes No. 2 Act and operative from 1 January 2025: intentional conduct by an employer that breaches an obligation to pay required amounts. Canonical claim accurate.
Aligned. Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) s 327A criminal underpayment offence correctly described: absolute liability for the required-amount and exclusion elements (1)(a)-(b), intention as fault element for conduct and result elements (1)(c)-(d), max 10 years imprisonment for individuals, and fines under s 327A(6) of the greater of 3x underpayment or 5,000 penalty units (individual) / 25,000 penalty units (body corporate), with the fallback formula where amount cannot be determined. Effective from 1 January 2025 per the Closing Loopholes No. 2 Act.
Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) s 327A wage-theft criminal offence is correctly framed — employer intentionally engages in conduct that results in failure to pay required amounts on or before required time (s 327A(1)). Commenced 1 Jan 2025 per Closing Loopholes No. 2 Act 2024.