Every rate, checked against the official source

Where the data comes from

All minimum pay rates, casual loading, and penalty rates come from the Fair Work Commission's official Pay Guides — the same PDF pay guides published by the Fair Work Ombudsman for each of the 50+ Modern Awards we cover.

Every award page and every result in the wage audit tool links directly to the source we checked it against, so you (or your institution's legal team) can verify it yourself.

How each rate is verified

1. The official pay guide PDF is downloaded directly from the Fair Work Commission for the award in question.
2. Every classification level, employment type (full-time, part-time, casual), and penalty rate (Saturday, Sunday, public holiday, evening, night, overtime, and award-specific rules) is extracted and cross-checked line by line against that PDF.
3. Casual loading and penalty multipliers are recalculated independently and compared against the published dollar figures, catching rounding or transcription errors before anything is published.
4. Discrepancies are corrected against the primary source before publishing — we don't average, estimate, or carry forward a prior year's figure.

How often data is updated

Fair Work Commission rates change annually, effective 1 July, following the Annual Wage Review. We re-verify every award against the newly published pay guides ahead of that date, and each award page shows the date it was last verified.

What this is — and isn't

FairLanding is a factual information tool, not legal or migration advice. We show you what the award says the minimum should be — always confirm your specific situation against the full award document or Fair Work Ombudsman advice line (13 13 94) before acting on it.

A small number of award-specific pay structures (for example, piece-rate work such as shearing, paid per sheep or per bale rather than per hour) can't be checked against an hourly minimum and are excluded from the calculator for that reason, rather than shown with a potentially misleading comparison.