Pub­li­ca­tions

May 19, 2020

COVID-19 | The Fed­er­al Court rules on per­son­al leave dur­ing stand down

In the deci­sion Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Elec­tri­cal, Elec­tron­ic, Ener­gy, Infor­ma­tion, Postal, Plumb­ing and Allied Ser­vices Union of Aus­tralia v Qan­tas Air­ways Lim­it­ed [2020] FCA 656, hand­ed down on 18 May 2020, Jus­tice Flick of the Fed­er­al Court ruled that employ­ees are not enti­tled to access paid personal/​carer’s leave or com­pas­sion­ate leave dur­ing a peri­od…

May 18, 2020

COVID-19 | First Job­Keep­er Deci­sion Clar­i­fies Annu­al Leave Request

In McCreedy v Vil­lage Road­show Theme Parks Pty Ltd [2020] FWC 2480, the Fair Work Com­mis­sion hand­ed down its first deci­sion deal­ing with a dis­pute aris­ing under the Job­Keep­er scheme.  The appli­cant, Ms McCreedy, had been employed by Vil­lage Road­show Theme Parks Pty Ltd (Vil­lage Road­show) on a part time basis, work­ing around 15 hours…

May 15, 2020

Stra­ta Schemes Gen­er­al Meet­ings in light of COVID-19

It has just been announced that the NSW Par­lia­ment is con­sid­er­ing reforms to the Stra­ta Schemes Man­age­ment Act 2015 (SSMA) to remove the need for face-to-face meet­ings and allow own­ers cor­po­ra­tions to oper­ate elec­tron­i­cal­ly. In the mean­time, own­ers cor­po­ra­tions are still required com­ply with their oblig­a­tions to hold meet­ings in…

May 15, 2020

Sep­a­ra­tion Post COVID 19 – Relo­ca­tion of chil­dren and the impor­tance of plan­ning now

Sep­a­ra­tion is tough! Espe­cial­ly when there are chil­dren involved but add a pan­dem­ic into the mix and it is next level. In these uncer­tain times it may feel as though you have lit­tle con­trol over your sep­a­ra­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly if you are want­i­ng to move with the chil­dren. With the COVID-19 restric­tions eas­ing…

May 14, 2020

Is your stra­ta scheme functioning?

We recent­ly act­ed for a lot owner/​building man­ag­er in a Stra­ta Appli­ca­tion to the NSW Civ­il and Admin­is­tra­tive Tri­bunal (NCAT) suc­cess­ful­ly seek­ing orders for the removal of the exist­ing stra­ta com­mit­tee and the com­pul­so­ry appoint­ment of a stra­ta man­ag­er to the scheme under s237 of the Stra­ta Schemes Man­age­ment Act 2015 (SSMA 2015)…

May 13, 2020

COVID-19 | Con­struc­tion Works With­in Stra­ta Schemes

With the intro­duc­tion of the Envi­ron­men­tal Plan­ning and Assess­ment (COVID-19 Devel­op­ment – Con­struc­tion Work Days) Order 2020 on 31 March 2020 (the Order), stra­ta schemes may be faced with deci­sions to make regard­ing the con­tin­u­a­tion or com­mence­ment of build­ing works dur­ing the Gov­ern­ment imposed restric­tions and social dis­tanc­ing guidelines.  Impact of…

Apr 29, 2020

COVID-19 | Spousal Main­te­nance Appli­ca­tions and Mod­i­fi­ca­tion of a Spouse Main­te­nance Order

The health and eco­nom­ic chaos caused by COVID ‑19 has already proven to be far reach­ing in Aus­tralia and through­out the World. The over­all eco­nom­ic impact and evo­lu­tion of the virus is still unknown. Aus­tralia, for now, appear to have deflect­ed the dev­as­tat­ing health cri­sis expe­ri­enced in oth­er coun­tries, how­ev­er…

Apr 26, 2020

COVID-19 | Too much time together….are you think­ing of leav­ing the Fam­i­ly Home?

Social dis­tanc­ing and trav­el restric­tions dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic is cre­at­ing stress on fam­i­lies. This stress is height­ened sig­nif­i­cant­ly if you want to sep­a­rate from your part­ner. If you find your­self in a posi­tion when you can­not take it any­more and want to leave the fam­i­ly home, it is impor­tant that…

Apr 23, 2020

COVID-19 | Redun­dan­cy pay­ments dur­ing the crisis

Michael Byrnes, Part­ner and Emi­ly Capen­er, Solic­i­tor pro­vide an overview of two recent cas­es that con­sid­ered the pay­ment of redun­dan­cy dur­ing the COVID-19 crisis.  Redun­dan­cies are gen­er­al­ly dri­ven by fac­tors such as tech­no­log­i­cal advances, com­pa­ny restruc­tur­ing and busi­ness clo­sures. Now, of course, employ­ers and employ­ees alike need to deal with the…

Apr 21, 2020

COVID-19 | Mak­ing a Will in times of emergency

COVID-19 has sig­nif­i­cant­ly changed the way we do ordi­nary tasks. With the increas­ing restric­tions on trav­el, leav­ing the home and gath­er­ings, tasks we used to do every­day with ease have become more dif­fi­cult. This is even more so when it comes to mak­ing your Will.  Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, a Will needs to be…