Pub­li­ca­tions

Jun 24, 2025

Impor­tant Work­place Rela­tions Changes Effec­tive 1 July 2025

Employ­ers and employ­ees alike should be aware of impor­tant changes in the work­place rela­tions are­na, effec­tive 1 July 2025. From that date:the high income thresh­old for unfair dis­missal claims will increase to $183,100 per annum (from the present $175,000 per annum) and the com­pen­sa­tion lim­it will be $91,550 (equiv­a­lent to 6 months of the revised high income thresh­old amount) for dis­missals…

Sep 6, 2023

Clos­ing Loop­holes or Rad­i­cal Change? The Fair Work Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Clos­ing Loop­holes) Bill 2023

Ear­li­er this week, the Albanese Gov­ern­ment intro­duced the ​‘Fair Work Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Clos­ing Loop­holes) Bill 2023’ (Bill), which con­tains a num­ber of sig­nif­i­cant reforms to the work­place rela­tions land­scape. If ful­ly imple­ment­ed in its cur­rent form, the Bill will lead to a num­ber of impli­ca­tions in the way busi­ness­es and work­ers engage…

Jun 29, 2022

Land­mark State­ment on the Rights of Gig Econ­o­my Workers

Uber and the Trans­port Work­ers Union (TWU) have signed a joint State­ment of Prin­ci­ples that calls for reform of the rights and con­di­tions of work­ers in the on-demand trans­port indus­try who are not engaged as employees. The state­ment sig­nals sup­port for the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment leg­is­lat­ing for an inde­pen­dent body with the capac­i­ty…

Dec 1, 2021

‘Tis the Sea­son to Avoid Fol­ly: Work­place Christ­mas Par­ties (COVID-19 Edi­tion 2021)

It’s that time of year. The ​‘Sil­ly Sea­son’. For many organ­i­sa­tions, the offi­cial employ­er Christ­mas par­ty is immi­nent. But this year, 2021, it’s with a dif­fer­ence. Employ­er Christ­mas par­ties will be held against the back­drop of the ongo­ing glob­al COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, includ­ing the new­ly emerg­ing Omi­cron variant. The start­ing point for such…

Aug 12, 2021

Casu­al employ­ment: Lat­est devel­op­ments and where to from here?

It has been a big year for casu­al employ­ees, with the law with respect to who a casu­al employ­ee is, and what their enti­tle­ments are, appear­ing to be (final­ly) set­tled. Some key devel­op­ments in this space from the last week alone are sum­marised below. Work­pac v Rossato On Wednes­day, 4 August the High Court hand­ed…

Aug 10, 2021

Manda­to­ry Work­place Vac­ci­na­tion: Some Myths

With SPC putting its head above the para­pet by man­dat­ing COVID-19 vac­ci­na­tion for its work­force, and the Nation­al Cab­i­net State­ment on 6 August, the top­ic of manda­to­ry work­place vac­ci­na­tion has nev­er gen­er­at­ed such inter­est, analy­sis or debate. In dis­cus­sion and report­ing on the issue there are some reg­u­lar­ly recur­ring myths. It is…

Jul 27, 2021

Qual­i­fi­ca­tions a floor, but not a ceil­ing, for award cov­er­age: FCAFC

In a deci­sion that has affirmed what those work­ing in the indus­tri­al rela­tions space already knew – that fit­ting an employ­ee’s role into an award clas­si­fi­ca­tion is hard – a full court of the Fed­er­al Court in King v Mel­bourne Vicen­tre Swim­ming Club Inc [2021] FCAFC 123 has over­turned a deci­sion of Jus­tice Whee­la­han that…

Jul 12, 2021

Manda­to­ry Work­place Vac­ci­na­tion: Reflec­tions on Recent Developments

With the cur­rent trou­bling Covid-19 clus­ter in NSW, and a deep con­cern about the rel­a­tive­ly low rates of vac­ci­na­tion of staff in some indus­tries which deal with the sick and the vul­ner­a­ble, most notably aged care, the issue of manda­to­ry work­place vac­ci­na­tion has gone from being an inter­est­ing the­o­ret­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tion to…

Jul 12, 2021

The impli­ca­tions of imply­ing a term of rea­son­able notice

In a deci­sion that demon­strates the need for employ­ment con­tracts to clear­ly spec­i­fy a term for notice of ter­mi­na­tion, Judge Obradovic in the Fed­er­al Cir­cuit Court case, McAl­is­ter v Yara Aus­tralia Pty Ltd [2021] FCCA 1409, has implied a term of 9 months’ notice into an employ­ee’s employ­ment contract. Back­ground The appli­cant had worked for her employ­er…

Jun 25, 2021

Gov­ern­ment Intro­duces Bill in Response to Land­mark AHRC Respect@Work Report

The Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment has intro­duced the Sex Dis­crim­i­na­tion and Fair Work (Respect at Work) Amend­ment Bill 2021 (the Bill) in response to the Respect@Work Report (the Report) pre­sent­ed to the Gov­ern­ment by the Sex Dis­crim­i­na­tion Com­mis­sion­er, Kate Jenk­ins, in March last year. As part of its ​‘Roadmap for Respect’ ini­tia­tive…