In a modern Australian business environment marked by onerous legislative and regulatory requirements, employing staff is not easy. In addition to the legal obligations on business, there are many other things to consider – insurance, licences and registrations, maintaining revenue growth and cash flow – and many businesses have neither the time nor the resources [...]
It’s hard to fire people in Australia. I’ve read a judgement this month from the High Court of Australia that has wide-ranging implications for employers who may be undergoing restructures or making employees redundant; it’s so significant in my view that it may prove to be a precedent case in years to come. But at [...]
In February 2024, the federal government passed a piece of legislation called the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Act 2024. Among other measures, the legislation mandates a right to disconnect outside work hours for employees. For businesses that are not “small businesses” under the Fair Work Act (i.e. those with more than [...]
Prior to 2022, the test of whether a person was considered to be an independent contractor or employee was based on applying a multi-factorial test (‘MFT’). The MFT looked at the substance of the relationship between the parties (how they operated with one another), over the actual form it was recorded (what the written contracted [...]
