Pub­li­ca­tions

Apr 27, 2023

Court of Appeal clar­i­fies whether devel­op­ment stan­dards are juris­dic­tion­al pre­req­ui­sites to the grant of devel­op­ment consent

On 26 April 2023, the New South Wales Court of Appeal hand­ed down its deci­sion in El Khouri v Gemaveld Pty Ltd [2023] NSW­CA 78 which has fur­ther clar­i­fied whether com­pli­ance with a devel­op­ment stan­dard is a juris­dic­tion­al fact that must be sat­is­fied in order to enliv­en the pow­er of the Land and…

Apr 19, 2023

Clos­ing The Gen­der Pay Gap

In 2021 the Work­place Gen­der Equal­i­ty Agency (Agency) con­duct­ed a review (Review) of the Work­place Gen­der Equal­i­ty Act 2012 (Act). The report result­ing from the Review was released in March 2022 and con­tained sev­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions with the objec­tive of reduc­ing the gen­der pay gap. The data from 2021 and 2022 showed…

Apr 13, 2023

Changes To Shut­down Leave Rules For 78 Mod­ern Awards

The Fair Work Com­mis­sion (‘FWC’) is required to con­duct a review of the mod­ern award process every 4 years under sec­tion 156A of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (‘FWA’). This time around, it will be amend­ing 78 dif­fer­ent mod­ern awards to include a new ​‘mod­el term’. This ​‘mod­el term’ is intend­ed to…

Mar 13, 2023

NSW Con­struc­tion Update

Roberts v Good­win Street Devel­op­ments Pty Ltd [2023] NSW­CA 5 In a recent deci­sion hand­ed down by the NSW Court of Appeal it has been con­firmed that the duty of care pro­vi­sions intro­duced under Part 4 of the Design and Build­ing Prac­ti­tion­ers Act 2020 (NSW) (DBP Act) on 10 June 2020, in par­tic­u­lar a claim…

Mar 7, 2023

Direc­tors’ Access to Com­pa­ny Books: Nav­i­gat­ing Statu­to­ry & Com­mon Law Require­ments in Australia

To man­age a com­pa­ny and dis­charge their duties, direc­tors need access to com­pa­ny infor­ma­tion. Ten­sion between direc­tors can arise about what access they can have to com­pa­ny books, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the con­text of a dis­pute at board lev­el. How­ev­er, direc­tors have statu­to­ry rights and com­mon law rights to access com­pa­ny books. This…

Mar 1, 2023

Stra­ta Reme­di­al Update: Emer­gency Reme­di­al Build­ing Works

The NSW Depart­ment of Cus­tomer Ser­vice has released a Fact Sheet: Emer­gency Reme­di­al Build­ing Work: https://​www​.fair​trad​ing​.nsw​.gov​.au/​t​r​a​d​e​s​-​a​n​d​-​b​u​s​i​n​e​s​s​e​s​/​c​o​n​s​t​r​u​c​t​i​o​n​-​a​n​d​-​t​r​a​d​e​-​e​s​s​e​n​t​i​a​l​s​/​w​o​r​k​i​n​g​-​o​n​-​c​l​a​s​s​-​2​-​b​u​i​l​d​i​n​g​s​/​b​u​i​l​d​i​n​g​-​p​r​a​c​t​i​t​i​o​n​e​r​-​o​b​l​i​g​a​t​i​o​n​s​/​e​m​e​r​g​e​n​c​y​-​r​e​m​e​d​i​a​l​-​b​u​i​l​d​i​n​g​-work This Fact Sheet has been pre­pared as a guide­line to assist own­ers cor­po­ra­tions, stra­ta man­agers and design and build­ing prac­ti­tion­ers in respect of reme­di­al emer­gency build­ing works in exist­ing class 2 buildings. The ongo­ing con­struc­tion reform in…

Feb 22, 2023

Changes to the Fair Work Act: An Overview

On 6 Decem­ber 2022 the Fair Work Leg­is­la­tion Amend­ment (Secure Jobs, Bet­ter Pay) Act 2022 passed into law (Amend­ing Leg­is­la­tion). The Amend­ing Leg­is­la­tion made sig­nif­i­cant changes to the Fair Work Act (Act) and relat­ed leg­is­la­tion. Some of these changes have already tak­en effect, while oth­ers will take effect through­out this year…

Feb 10, 2023

Shift­ing the dial on build­ing defects lia­bil­i­ty – a greater risk for com­pa­ny direc­tors and devel­op­ers under recent leg­isla­tive reform

Under the Home Build­ing Act 1989, claimants in defec­tive build­ing cas­es against cor­po­rate builders and/​or cor­po­rate devel­op­ers may hit a road­block in the case of ulti­mate insol­ven­cy of those par­ties even if the claims are suc­cess­ful and rec­ti­fi­ca­tion or dam­ages orders are made in respect of the defects.  Has this now changed…

Feb 7, 2023

Valen­tine’s Day in the Work­place (2023 Edition)

Valen­tine’s Day, the cel­e­bra­tion of romance and roman­tic love, takes place annu­al­ly on Feb­ru­ary 14. While many assid­u­ous­ly avoid what they con­sid­er to be a crass com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion of inti­mate rela­tion­ships, oth­ers embrace with rel­ish the oppor­tu­ni­ties it presents to either affirm or pur­sue romance. A few years ago exten­sive media cov­er­age (usu­al­ly with accom­pa­ny­ing…

Jan 30, 2023

Looks like an employ­ee, works like an employ­ee, behaves like an employ­ee… but they could be a contractor

Since the Hol­lis v Vabu (​‘Vabu’) deci­sion in 2001, the courts and the Fair Work Com­mis­sion (‘FWC’) have applied a holis­tic assess­ment in deter­min­ing whether the rela­tion­ship between a busi­ness and its work­er is an employ­ment rela­tion­ship or a con­trac­tor engagement.  How­ev­er, in 2022, the High Court deci­sions of Per­son­nel Con­tract­ing and Jam­sek threw out…