Agreement · Employment & Workplace Relations
Employment contract (award-covered and award-free variants)
Plain-English employment contract for ongoing, fixed-term or casual staff, with award-covered and award-free variants, NES-safe leave and notice terms, and IP, confidentiality, AI-use and restraint clauses.
- Kind
- Agreement. A contract between two or more parties.
- Where it applies
- Australia, New South Wales
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 17 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked on 17 October 2026 against the 10 authorities it cites, for Australia and New South Wales.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use for a new employee in the Fair Work Act national system. Do not use for independent contractors, senior executives who need a negotiated service agreement, or state-system public sector employees without reworking it.
How AI may be used
AI can tailor the template to the role and fill the schedule, but award coverage, classification, minimum pay and restraint scope are legal judgments that a lawyer confirms against the current instruments.
AI may
- Fill the Schedule from the signed offer, position description and written instructions, and list any gaps.
- Compare the client's existing contract with this precedent and produce an issues table with clause references.
- Draft a plain-English cover note explaining the contract to the employee for the lawyer to settle.
AI must not
- Must not decide which modern award or enterprise agreement covers the role, or the classification level.
- Must not state minimum rates, penalty rates or allowances from memory: rates change each 1 July and must come from the current instrument.
- Must not receive the candidate's tax file number, health information or background-check results in a tool whose terms allow training or retention outside the firm's control.
The lawyer checks
- Award or agreement coverage and classification are confirmed and recorded on the file.
- Pay meets the minimum for every hour worked, including any reconciliation the instrument requires for annualised or set-off arrangements.
- Restraint periods and areas are no wider than needed, and checked against the status of the proposed non-compete ban.
- Fixed-term and casual terms comply with ss 333E-333F and s 15A, and the right information statement is given.
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Employment & Workplace Relations
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- Employer response to an unfair dismissal application (Form F3): completion guide and jurisdictional-objection checklist
- Workplace generative AI acceptable use policy
- Notice to employees of computer and AI-enabled workplace monitoring (NSW and ACT, with Victorian notes)
- WHS risk assessment for AI-driven work allocation and monitoring (psychosocial hazards)
All precedents for Employment & Workplace Relations · Tasks and AI use in this area