Pub­li­ca­tions

Jul 12, 2018

Every­one lies in their job appli­ca­tions… so can I fire them?

There is a com­mon per­cep­tion that most peo­ple lie in their résumés and job appli­ca­tions. Whether it be the exag­ger­at­ing the senior­i­ty of a role, extend­ing the length of time you actu­al­ly worked in a par­tic­u­lar posi­tion or describ­ing a par­tic­u­lar epoch as ​“time spent trav­el­ling” to avoid dis­clos­ing a short but ill-fat­ed peri­od of…

Jul 9, 2018

The AHRC and Crim­i­nal Record Dis­crim­i­na­tion: A Tooth­less Tiger

The recent AHRC report into dis­crim­i­na­tion in employ­ment on the basis of crim­i­nal record, BE v Sun­corp Group Ltd [2018] AusHRC 121, has gar­nered sig­nif­i­cant media atten­tion and com­mu­ni­ty debate. What it serves to high­light is that the Aus­tralian Human Rights Com­mis­sion (AHRC) is a ​“tooth­less tiger” when it comes to dis­crim­i­na­tion…

Jun 26, 2018

Sala­cious facts, impor­tant principles

The atten­tion an unfair dis­missal case receives is some­times pro­por­tion­ate to how sala­cious the under­ly­ing facts con­sid­ered in the case are as opposed to the impor­tance of any legal prin­ci­ples that emerge. Hav­ing said that, an inter­est­ing fac­tu­al matrix (which some­times results in a ​“tabloid” or ​“click­bait” treat­ment of a case)…

Jun 5, 2018

Break­ing up is hard to do — Com­mu­ni­cat­ing ter­mi­na­tion of employment

HARD CON­VER­SA­TIONS Two of the hard­est con­ver­sa­tions to have with any­one are end­ing a rela­tion­ship and ter­mi­nat­ing employment. On the for­mer, the eti­quette guide Debret­t’s gives this guid­ance on the appro­pri­ate method of communication: “Always meet up with your (soon-to-be-ex) part­ner; email and text are a sav­age and bru­tal mode of rela­tion­ship tor­ture”…

May 8, 2018

“Your employ­ee offend­ed me. What are you going to do about it?”: Employ­ee Social Media Conduct

A Com­plaint is Made It’s hard­ly a start­ing or nov­el obser­va­tion that social media plat­forms like Twit­ter and Face­book are not always exem­plars of cour­te­ous, respect­ful dis­cus­sion and debate. Exchanges can often descend into insults and crude ad hominem attacks. On occa­sion these exchanges will end with one of the par­ties threat­en­ing…

May 7, 2018

Five employ­ment law cas­es that shook the world: #1 Can notice and annu­al leave run together? 

As part of a series of arti­cles we are exam­in­ing five employ­ment law cas­es that shook the world (or at least mem­bers of the Aus­tralian HR community). A mat­ter that fre­quent­ly caus­es con­fu­sion in the sphere of employ­ment law is the inter­play between notice and annu­al leave. For exam­ple, if an employ­ee is…

May 7, 2018

Five employ­ment law cas­es that shook the world: #2 Annu­al leave load­ing is payable on termination 

As part of a series of arti­cles we are exam­in­ing five employ­ment law cas­es that shook the world (or at least mem­bers of the Aus­tralian HR community). There was a time when there was some uncer­tain­ty as to whether an employ­ee who was enti­tled to paid annu­al leave load­ing, was also enti­tled to…

May 7, 2018

Five employ­ment law cas­es that shook the world: No #3 Annu­al leave and work­ers comp accruals

As part of a series of arti­cles we are exam­in­ing five employ­ment law cas­es that shook the world (or at least mem­bers of the Aus­tralian HR community). Sec­tion 130 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (​“restric­tion on tak­ing or accru­ing leave or absence while receiv­ing work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion”) includes the following: “(1) An employ­ee…

May 7, 2018

Five employ­ment law cas­es that shook the world: #5 — Ser­vice as a casu­al counts for redun­dan­cy pay

As part of a series of arti­cles we are exam­in­ing five employ­ment law cas­es that shook the world (or at least mem­bers of the Aus­tralian HR community). Casu­al employ­ees are enti­tled to a load­ing (or uplift) on the min­i­mum wages paid to per­ma­nent employ­ees (usu­al­ly 25%). It is well under­stood that the high­er…

May 7, 2018

Five employ­ment law cas­es that shook the world: #4 No redun­dan­cy con­sul­ta­tion, no unfair dismissal

As part of a series of arti­cles we are exam­in­ing five employ­ment law cas­es that shook the world (or at least mem­bers of the Aus­tralian HR community). Sec­tion 385 of the Fair Work Act 2009 pro­vides that a claim for unfair dis­missal can­not be made if the dis­missal was a case of ​“gen­uine redun­dan­cy”…