Horticulture Award
Covers the horticulture industry — sowing, planting, raising, cultivation, harvesting, picking, washing, packing, storing, grading, forwarding or treating of horticultural crops. 5 classifications (Levels 1-5, standard rate Level 2). Excludes wine, silviculture, sugar, cotton and plant nurseries. Pieceworkers are a distinctive feature with their own rate-setting and exclusions from ordinary-hours / meal / overtime clauses.
Fully built. Rates, allowances, penalties and any required apprentice / junior rates are all wired to the rate resolver and have been verified against the consolidated award text and the latest pay guide.
What's built
- All 5 cl. 15.1 classifications at the July 2025 figures.
- Junior rates from under-16 (50%) through 19-year-old (90%), 20+ as adult.
- Pieceworker rules per cl. 15.2 — average-productivity ≥15% above hourly rate, daily floor at hourly × hours, casual piece rate includes 25% loading, public holiday 200% of piece rate.
- Higher-duties rule — >2 hours = whole shift at higher rate, ≤2 hours = pro-rata.
- Casual quirk: 5am-8.30pm 25% loading; 8.31pm-4.59am ADDITIONAL 15% on top of the 25% (cl. 13.2(d)).
- FT / PT averaging — 152 hours over a 4-week cycle; casuals 304 hours over an 8-week cycle.
Known limitations
No outstanding gaps at this revision — re-verify on the next Fair Work pay-guide release.
Setup & special instructions
- Pieceworkers are EXCLUDED from cl. 13 (ordinary hours), cl. 18.3(c) (meal allowance) and cl. 21 (overtime) — set the pieceworker flag on the employee so the resolver applies the right rule set.
- Casual outside-span hours (8.31pm-4.59am) attract an ADDITIONAL 15% loading stacked on top of the 25% casual loading.
- 'Pieceworker competent at the piecework task' (cl. 15.2(a)(iv)) requires ≥76 hours' experience — track competency separately from base classification.
- • Horticulture
- • Crop farming
- • Harvesting
- • Plant cultivation
The consolidated award text is the authoritative source. Always confirm specific obligations against the award itself — Mployr's implementation status reflects what we've seeded; it does not replace legal advice.
Want to see this award running on your data?
We can demo a pay run on the horticulture award using sample employees in a sandbox tenant — including any of the special-instruction steps above so you can see exactly what your team's day-to-day looks like.
Book a demo