The Productivity Commission has again justified its recommendation for having a uniform penalty rate for weekend workers.
The Fair Work Commission is still considering a proposal to bring the Sunday rate in line with the lower Saturday rate.
It was one of several of recommendations made by the Productivity Commission in its workplace relations framework released last year.
Productivity Commission chairman Peter Harris told a Senate hearing on Thursday the price for labour when Australia was a five-day-a-week, nine-to-five economy may be out of kilter with the expectation for a 24/7 economy running today.
"We were proposing a weekend rate, not a Saturday rate and a much higher Sunday rate ," he said.
But Mr Harris emphasised the commission never said "no penalty rates".
"Quite the reverse," he said.
The report did point out penalty rates were "underdone" in some areas.
"But we didn't get much attention to that."
