Another one bites the dust. Matt Canavan’s resignation last Tuesday from his cabinet position as Minister for Resources and Northern Australia brings the tally up to three senators who, because of their dual-citizenship, have been found ineligible, or potentially ineligible, under section 44 of the Constitution. Question marks also hang over a fourth senator, One…
Category: News & Commentary
The Uber Driver Model – Rooster or Duck?
A key principle of Australian employment law is that issues of substance are given more recognition than issues of form. As Justice Gray famously stated “parties cannot create something which has every feature of a rooster, but call it a duck and insist that everybody else recognise it as a duck“. In other words, a…
Travelling: it’s all in a day’s work – 3 issues employers must consider for employees who travel
Domestic and overseas travel has become highly accessible and affordable which has presented many opportunities for national and multinational businesses as employees can travel relatively easily and cheaply between offices, sites and clients. In fact, the prevalence of business travel is quite significant and in 2016, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported 9% of overseas…
Cops and Robbers in the ‘Fair Work’ Economy. Are regulatory authorities barking up the wrong tree?
Despite the existence of a national framework of minimum entitlements for employees, there is still a strong distinction between workers’ rights and workers’ reality. This is particularly the case amongst vulnerable employees. While much political attention is devoted to the legislative provision of rights, enforcement of these rights is perhaps more relevant. Two Commonwealth agencies…
Anti-social media: 4 ways to manage social media and cyber-bullying in the workplace
Whilst technology and social media have unquestionably provided many benefits to the modern workplace and opportunities for businesses to reach a wider audience, they have also presented dilemmas for HR managers and business owners when dealing with interactions between employees. With the increased use of the internet and social media, and the fact that almost…
‘Because’ – four reasons why a simple word has confused employment lawyers for a generation
There are over 200,000 words in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). It is longer than the New Testament. It is a ‘plain English statute’, which means most of the words are ordinary. The word ‘and’ is used 3,099 times, ‘or’ is used 5,030 times, and the word ‘if’ is used 1,478 times. The word…