The Victorian working from home legislation "aims to strike a balance" between making remote work available to more workers and the "operational realities" of businesses, partly by creating a comprehensive "reasonableness" test, Premier Jacinta Allan told State Parliament today.
The FWC has ordered an employer to allow a mother with two young children – one with special needs – to mostly work from her outer suburban home, rebuffing its call for her to attend its Sydney CBD office two days a week.
The FWC has backed a mining company's denial of a worker's request for flexible work to enable her to care for her baby, in a decision finding fairness a "neutral consideration" where both parties have acted reasonably.
Employers should consider broadening the definition of "family" in flexible work policies to reflect Indigenous kinship networks, according to the Centre for Indigenous People and Work, while unions are calling for a similar change to the NES leave entitlements, along with a new cultural leave entitlement.
Electors perceived as "Trump-like" the Dutton Opposition's plans to axe 40,000 public sector jobs and scrap work from home for federal public servants, with the WFH policy fuelling views that the Liberals were "unsympathetic to the needs of women", according to a damning review of the Liberal Party's 2025 federal election campaign.
Working from home arrangements have been a big success in the Australian Public Service, with a mere handful of disputes about flexible work requests, the CPSU has told a Senate inquiry into a bill aimed at enshrining WFH rights.
Employers should be required to consider compensating or giving additional leave to workers who are unable to work from home, to offset savings remote workers make on commuting costs, a police union has told the inquiry into the Greens' WFH Bill.
The FWC has upbraided an early learning facility for seeking to override a part-time employee's right to predictable hours that the employer found "commercially or operationally inconvenient".
The need for legislation to enshrine two days a week of working from home for all employees is "not clear", as many employers and workers have now found a hybrid "sweet spot" without any government intervention, according to the Productivity Commission.
