Whilst all the talk so far in December regarding politics has been about getting sick asylum seekers off Nauru, national cyber security, the government potentially losing a vote in the House of Representatives for the first time since 1929 and the never-ending in-fighting amongst the Liberal Party, you would be forgiven for missing some rather…
Category: News & Commentary
Hidden disabilities in the workforce and inadvertent discrimination
A recent case before the Victorian Supreme Court of Appeal, Ferris v State of Victoria [2018] VSCA 240, serves as a reminder for employers that they can be found guilty of unlawful discrimination even if they were unaware of their employee’s disability, or the discriminatory effect of its requirements on individual employees.
What to make of the “Change The Rules” campaign
Last Tuesday, October 23, 2018, union rallies were held in Melbourne and Sydney in support of the Australian Council of Trade Union’s (‘ACTU’) “change the rules” campaign. The protests followed a series of national TV and radio advertisements launched in early October. The “change the rules” campaign is seeking to “re-balance the system and negotiate…
Can the Giants dismiss Shane Mumford for his out-of-hours conduct?
In the latest instalment of “professional sports stars behaving badly”, a video has surfaced of ex-GWS Giants and Sydney Swans player Shane Mumford snorting a line of powder. The incident allegedly occurred in 2015 when Mumford was still a player for the Giants, the club at which he currently works as an assistant coach. The…
California’s ‘ABC’ test for Independent Contractors – some key lessons for Australia
Australian workplace lawyers are parochial by nature. We don’t look at international examples very often. And given the tens of thousands of pages of domestic industrial instruments that we are forced to wade through each year, we can hardly be blamed for not seeking out more in our spare time. California, in particular, rarely gets…
Will the Fair Work Act protect a Cricket Australia employee’s right to tweet her political opinion?
Earlier in August, Fairfax broke the story of a Cricket Australia employee, Angela Williamson, allegedly sacked for criticising via Twitter the Tasmanian government’s policy on access to abortion services. It’s become a PR nightmare for Cricket Australia with the news of Ms Williamson’s dismissal doing far greater damage to Cricket Australia’s reputation than Ms Williamson’s…