Pub­li­ca­tions

Jan 17, 2025

Aus­tralia Day Sub­sti­tu­tion: The Legal Issues (2025 Edition)

It has been report­ed that some of the largest employ­ers in Aus­tralia, includ­ing Tel­stra, Com­mon­wealth Bank and Aus­tralian­Su­per, are giv­ing employ­ees the option of work­ing on Aus­tralia Day (Jan­u­ary 26) and tak­ing that pub­lic hol­i­day at anoth­er time. This devel­op­ment in recent years has arisen from both a gen­er­al trend towards flex­i­bil­i­ty in…

Dec 6, 2024

Valid­i­ty, void­abil­i­ty and unen­force­abil­i­ty in con­tract law

If you have entered into a con­tract, you or the oth­er par­ty have draft­ed with­out legal assis­tance, you should con­sid­er some of the unin­tend­ed seri­ous con­se­quences that can arise, includ­ing where a con­tract or a term in a con­tract is void, void­able or unen­force­able. There are dif­fer­ences between valid­i­ty, void­abil­i­ty and unen­force­abil­i­ty. This arti­cle…

Nov 29, 2024

Nav­i­gat­ing Pri­or­i­ty Dis­putes under the PPSR: Path­ways and con­sid­er­a­tions for Secured Parties

The Per­son­al Prop­er­ty Secu­ri­ties Reg­is­ter (PPSR) serves as a vital frame­work for estab­lish­ing and pro­tect­ing inter­ests in per­son­al prop­er­ty in Aus­tralia. How­ev­er, dis­putes regard­ing pri­or­i­ties under the PPSR can lead secured par­ties into com­plex admin­is­tra­tive and judi­cial review process­es. The res­o­lu­tion options avail­able under the Per­son­al Prop­er­ty Secu­ri­ties Act 2009 (PPS…

Nov 11, 2024

‘Tis the Sea­son to Avoid Fol­ly: Work­place Christ­mas Par­ties (2024 Edition)

It’s that time of year. The ​‘Sil­ly Sea­son’. For many organ­i­sa­tions, the offi­cial employ­er Christ­mas par­ty is imminent.The start­ing point for office Christ­mas par­ties is that they are an exten­sion of the work­place — employ­ers need to care­ful­ly bal­ance hold­ing and facil­i­tat­ing a fun event with main­tain­ing a safe, respect­ful envi­ron­ment for employees.Bal­anc­ing the…

Oct 28, 2024

Secret Record­ing by Employ­ees: An Own Goal

In the recent unfair dis­missal deci­sion Karen Altham-Wood­ing v PKD­KAd­ven­tures Pty Ltd [2024] FWC 2753, the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (FWC) affirmed its pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed dis­ap­proval of employ­ees mak­ing secret record­ings of meet­ings with colleagues. In this case, once Deputy Pres­i­dent Saun­ders had deter­mined the ini­tial ques­tion of whether there had been a dis­missal of…

Sep 30, 2024

The Effec­tive End of Pro­ba­tion­ary Periods?

Back­groundEven though the recent Fed­er­al Court judg­ment of Jus­tice Nicholas in Dab­boussy v Aus­tralian Fed­er­a­tion of Islam­ic Coun­cils [2024] FCA 1074 was inter­locu­to­ry, it has nev­er­the­less attract­ed much inter­est. This inter­est is war­rant­ed. The employ­er in the case did what many employ­ers have done – ter­mi­nat­ed employ­ment just before the employ­ee…

Sep 19, 2024

Pro­tect­ing the Com­plainant v Prov­ing the Case: A Dif­fi­cult Balance

In recent years employ­ers have placed greater impor­tance on the pro­tec­tion of employ­ees who raise alle­ga­tions of mis­con­duct or wrong­do­ing. This has been reflect­ed in a range of ways includ­ing poli­cies and pro­to­cols for deal­ing with whistle­blow­er dis­clo­sures, pro­hi­bi­tions against vic­tim­i­sa­tion or adverse action, the adop­tion of a trau­ma-informed approach to work­place…

Sep 9, 2024

The Right to Dis­con­nect: Con­tact from Cus­tomers and Clients

There has been much cov­er­age and dis­cus­sion about the new­ly intro­duced right to dis­con­nect, par­tic­u­lar­ly the right of employ­ees to refuse con­tact from employ­ers pro­vid­ed such refusal is not unreasonable.One of the more chal­leng­ing aspects of the right to dis­con­nect, which has been over­looked in much of the analy­sis and…

Sep 3, 2024

What are you actu­al­ly buy­ing into when you buy a Stra­ta Unit?

It is impor­tant to under­stand what you are respon­si­ble for and what you actu­al­ly own when look­ing at buy­ing into stra­ta. You might be surprised.Usu­al­ly, when pur­chas­ing an indi­vid­ual lot in a stra­ta scheme, you are only buy­ing the air­space of a lot, the inter­nal sur­faces of walls, floors, ceil­ings includ­ing inter­nal walls…

Aug 29, 2024

5 claus­es to look out for in your fran­chise agree­ment – they might be unfair

Changes to the unfair con­tract terms régime are in effect, and enter­ing into any fran­chise agree­ment con­tain­ing an unfair con­tact term or rely­ing on an unfair con­tract term in a fran­chise agree­ment could come with sig­nif­i­cant penal­ties for fran­chisors. Both fran­chisors and fran­chisees should review their fran­chise agree­ments to ensure they do…