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Swear­ing at work — can it cost you your job?

In Brief What is appro­pri­ate and inap­pro­pri­ate con­duct in the work­place is con­stant­ly evolv­ing. Whether swear­ing is regard­ed as offen­sive is often informed by the con­text, the type of swear­ing and the audi­ence. The ques­tion of whether swear­ing at work can cost you your job is a high­ly rel­e­vant one. Sev­er­al cas­es…

Intro­duc­ing the ear­ly years qual­i­ty fund — are you eli­gi­ble to receive funding?

This year the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment announced the Ear­ly Years Qual­i­ty Fund as part of its Nation­al Qual­i­ty Agen­da for ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion and care. There will be an addi­tion­al $300 mil­lion fund­ing to sup­port child­care ser­vice providers to pay a $3 per hour wage increase to Cer­tifi­cate III qual­i­fied edu­ca­tors…

3D print­ing — Top 10 IP challenges

In brief 3D scan­ning and print­ing tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tionise man­u­fac­tur­ing, like the rise of the per­son­al com­put­er chal­lenged the ortho­doxy of the tra­di­tion­al world of com­put­ing. As the avail­abil­i­ty and ease of use 3D print­ing tech­nol­o­gy increas­es, and the price drops, the tech­nol­o­gy will gain wider use…

ACCC takes first enforce­ment action under ​“unfair con­tract” laws in the Aus­tralian Con­sumer Law

In Brief- Don’t be caught in the ACC­C’s crosshairs The Aus­tralian Com­pe­ti­tion and Con­sumer Com­mis­sion (ACCC) has start­ed to take enforce­ment action against stan­dard form con­sumer con­tract terms that it con­sid­ers to be unfair and unenforceable. Nation­al laws pro­scrib­ing unfair con­tract terms, includ­ed in the Aus­tralian Con­sumer Law (ACL), came…

Spouse main­te­nance — fre­quent­ly asked questions

IN BRIEF — What is Spouse Maintenance? Spouse main­te­nance is mon­ey paid by one spouse or de fac­to part­ner to the oth­er spouse or de fac­to part­ner, usu­al­ly on a week­ly or month­ly basis. How can I apply for maintenance? You are not auto­mat­i­cal­ly enti­tled to be paid maintenance. You can ask your…

Divorce — fre­quent­ly asked questions

Am i eli­gi­ble to apply for divorce in australia? If you want to apply for a divorce in Aus­tralia either you or your spouse need to have some con­nec­tion with Aus­tralia. Usu­al­ly this means that at least one of you: regards Aus­tralia as your home and intends to live here indef­i­nite­ly; or is an Aus­tralian…

Employ­ers need to be aware of changes to the Migra­tion Act 1958 (Cth)

In Brief In March of this year the Migra­tion Amend­ment (Reform of Employ­er Sanc­tions) Act 2013 (Cth) (the Amend­ment) was passed. This Amend­ment has intro­duced sev­er­al impor­tant changes to the Migra­tion Act 1958 (Cth) (the Act). These include offences and civ­il con­tra­ven­tions for employ­ers in addi­tion to increased pow­ers for the…

What to avoid when ter­mi­nat­ing employees

In Brief  There are sev­er­al actions which Employ­ers need to be aware can get them into trou­ble regard­ing ter­mi­nat­ing an employ­ee and any sub­se­quent employ­ee claim to the Fair Work Com­mis­sion. Remem­ber a claim for unfair dis­missal is an acces­si­ble and cheap process for many employ­ees which can end up cost­ing employ­ers…

Work­place Poli­cies — What are they good for?

In Brief Employ­ers inter­est­ed in keep­ing the costs of their busi­ness down often view work­place poli­cies as an unnec­es­sary expense. How­ev­er, when things go wrong in a work­place the catch­cry is too often ​“if only we had a pol­i­cy!” There are def­i­nite ben­e­fits to work­places poli­cies, the most impor­tant is that work­place poli­cies…

Work­place Poli­cies: Direc­tives or Con­trac­tu­al Terms

In Brief Most employ­ers have now have imple­ment­ed work­place poli­cies, whether they are address­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion, use of com­pa­ny vehi­cles or health and safe­ty. While poli­cies are often treat­ed as pro­vid­ing direc­tions from an employ­er the issue of their sta­tus is a more com­pli­cat­ed one. Work­place poli­cies can actu­al­ly have the force of…

Cor­po­rate gov­er­nance: High Court con­firms its pow­er to cor­rect direc­tors’ inno­cent mistakes

In Brief In a recent case the High Court has acknowl­edged that inno­cent mis­takes can hap­pen in rela­tion to cor­po­rate gov­er­nance and has unan­i­mous­ly con­firmed the breadth of the Court’s pow­er to cor­rect such mistakes. Wein­stock v Beck ([2013] HCA 14) con­cerned a fam­i­ly busi­ness, L W Fur­ni­ture Con­sol­i­dat­ed (Aust) Pty Ltd (LWC), and a share­hold­er appli­ca­tion…

Stop bul­ly­ing orders — work­place bul­ly­ing soon to become a more pub­lic ordeal

In Brief Bul­ly­ing has increas­ing­ly been recog­nised as a seri­ous issue in the work­place, in edu­ca­tion and in the online world. Recent­ly the Vic­to­ria Supreme Court ordered an employ­er pay a bul­lied employ­ee $600,000 fol­low­ing their inac­tion over her bul­ly­ing claims. The case demon­strates the seri­ous­ness of bul­ly­ing and how impor­tant it is…

Hir­ing a work­er who is not an Aus­tralian cit­i­zen? Your respon­si­bil­i­ties have now increased

In Brief For some busi­ness­es attract­ing and retain­ing employ­ees in low skill or alter­nate­ly high­ly spe­cialised roles is an ongo­ing chal­lenge. To stay com­pet­i­tive and retain con­trol of the labour spend, it can be nec­es­sary to employ work­ers who are not cit­i­zens of Aus­tralia. There has always been an ele­ment of…

Relo­cat­ing chil­dren after divorce — When is it okay?

In Brief As more fam­i­lies become ​“inter­na­tion­al” many are faced with the dilem­ma that on divorce (or sep­a­ra­tion) one part­ner wants to go back home with the chil­dren and the oth­er wants them to stay here. This arti­cle out­lines what to con­sid­er if you’re think­ing about leav­ing Australia. Glob­al­i­sa­tion has led…

The dos and don’ts when ter­mi­nat­ing employees

In Brief How you ter­mi­nate an employ­ee can be a mine­field, with many employ­ers find­ing them­selves before the Fair Work Com­mis­sion because they got it wrong. A claim for unfair dis­missal is an acces­si­ble and cheap process for many employ­ees which can end up cost­ing employ­ers a lot of time and mon­ey. This arti­cle…