Pub­li­ca­tions

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…

Jan 23, 2023

Aus­tralia Day Sub­sti­tu­tion: The Legal Issues

It has been report­ed that some of the largest employ­ers in Aus­tralia, includ­ing Wool­worths, Tel­stra and Net­work 10, are now giv­ing employ­ees the option of work­ing on Aus­tralia Day (Jan­u­ary 26) and tak­ing that pub­lic hol­i­day at anoth­er time.  This devel­op­ment has arisen from both a gen­er­al trend towards flex­i­bil­i­ty in the…

Dec 22, 2022

New Employ­ment Zones to com­mence April 2023 | Plan­ning & Environment

The New South Wales Gov­ern­ment has amend­ed Local Envi­ron­men­tal Plans to replace Busi­ness and Indus­tri­al Zones with new ​‘Employ­ment Zones’.  The changes have been a long time in the mak­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly devel­oped under the for­mer Min­is­ter for Plan­ning back in May of 2021, the reforms fol­low the Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty Com­mis­sion’s 2021 White Paper…

Nov 16, 2022

Are Prenups the height of romance? Rethink­ing Bind­ing Finan­cial Agreements

When peo­ple think about ​‘romance’, they tend to imag­ine things like can­dle­light, flow­ers, oys­ters, cham­pagne. Well, con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, I believe that Bind­ing Finan­cial Agree­ments should be bumped up the list. Whilst the ​‘brand­ing’ of BFA’s may need a lit­tle mar­ket­ing rework, they are, at their core, a deeply lov­ing and roman­tic document…

Nov 14, 2022

‘Tis the Sea­son to Avoid Fol­ly: Work­place Christ­mas Par­ties (2022 Edition)

It’s that time of year. The ​‘Sil­ly Sea­son’. For many organ­i­sa­tions, the offi­cial employ­er Christ­mas par­ty is immi­nent. The events for this year, 2022, will be the first for three years in which the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic won’t be a sig­nif­i­cant factor.  The start­ing point for office Christ­mas par­ties is that they are…

Nov 7, 2022

Paid Fam­i­ly and Domes­tic Vio­lence Leave – Amend­ments to the NES under the Fair Work Act

The Albanese Labor Gov­ern­ment has ful­filled a promise made pri­or to the elec­tion to imple­ment a change to employ­ment laws which will assist vic­tims of fam­i­ly and domes­tic violence.  As a result of this change, which was passed by Fed­er­al Par­lia­ment on 27 Octo­ber 2022, employ­ees will now, under the Nation­al Employ­ment Stan­dards, be…

Oct 12, 2022

Are We; Aren’t We? Deter­min­ing whether a De Fac­to rela­tion­ship exists

As soci­ety and our views about mod­ern rela­tion­ships change, we have seen few­er peo­ple rush­ing to the alter, with many hap­py to tack­le life side by side as De Fac­to part­ners. Whilst for mar­ried cou­ples there is lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty prov­ing the exis­tence of a mar­riage (with the help of a Mar­riage Cer­tifi­cate)…