The Round Up

The beginning of the new financial year is not just cause for celebration for our accounting friends, there’s something in it for us IR nerds, too!

In this edition, we’ll bring to your attention important updates that take effect from 1 July 2025, including, minimum wage and award increases, a new Casual Employment Information Statement, superannuation guarantee increase to 12% and changes to the government’s paid parental leave scheme.

The NHVR, in consultation with your industry colleagues, recently released the Regulatory Advice – Bus and Coach Driver Fatigue and Health and Wellbeing. We welcome the opportunity for more industry-specific advice to be available through NHVR and we continue to work with the NHVR to deliver and develop materials to help our industry comply with these important requirements.

Since the last edition, I was fortunate to attend the BusSA Conference in Adelaide. It was a wonderful event, and I commend Craig Spurr and his team for putting on a seamless and informative conference. I also managed to get across to Perth more recently for BusWA’s annual conference and met with our western neighbours at the APTIA breakfast. Full commendations to John Ditchburn for another great industry event.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for your involvement in the consultation process for the NTC Review: Improving Health Screening for Heavy Vehicle Drivers project. With your support and collaboration, we were able to provide a comprehensive submission to the NTC. (You can find it HERE, summary below) It’s obvious how passionate and engaged you are with ensuring our industry is heard. Over two roundtable sessions, we heard from around 45 industry representatives. THANK YOU!

We continue to advocate for the industry at all levels. Key areas of focus for the remainder of the year includes the ensuring the industry is prepared for the inevitable single interest / multi-employer bargaining that’s coming our way and pushing for lifting or erasing the pensions earning cap for drivers.

Finally, I look forward to meeting and getting to know more of our members in the coming months.

Until next time.

Kirsten Jongsma
National Industrial Relations Manager 
APTIA | BIC