Australia: In The Pipeline - Highlighting Legislative Reforms Of Interest To Employers In Australia

Federal Election 14 September 2013

Prime Minister Julia Gillard departed from tradition by announcing the Federal election more than seven months in advance. Australian citizens will go to the vote on Saturday, 14 September 2013 to elect members of the 44th Parliament of Australia. Voting is compulsory for all Australian citizens aged 18 years and over.

Workplace Bullying in the Spotlight

The Australian Government has announced it will amend the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) to give the national workplace tribunal, the Fair Work Commission (FWC), the power to deal with workplace bullying complaints. Under the changes proposed, a national definition of workplace bullying will be adopted, but it will recognise that bullying does not include reasonable management practices, including performance management conducted reasonably.

The changes will allow employees to make a complaint about bullying in the workplace to the FWC, and the FWC will be required to deal with the application as a priority. The FWC will also be given power to make orders to deal with the complaint or to refer it to the relevant state workplace health and safety regulator.

These amendments follow the recommendations made by a Parliamentary Committee in its recent report, Workplace Bullying: We just want it to stop. The same report also called upon the national workplace safety policy body, Safe Work Australia (SWA), to urgently progress the draft Model Code of Practice, Managing the Risk of Workplace Bullying. It is expected that SWA will release the Model Code in the first half of this year for further public comment so that it can be finalised and released for adoption across Australia.

Expansion to Right to Request Flexible Work

The Australian Government has also announced that it will introduce legislation before the September 14 election to broaden the right to request flexible work under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). This announcement follows the release of a report, Investing in Care: Recognising and Valuing Those Who Care by the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), which suggested that carers' rights should be extended by removing the restrictions on the categories of employees who have a right to request flexible work. Currently, the right to request flexible hours is limited to parents with responsibility for a child under school age or a child with disability aged under 18. Under the proposed amendments, the right to request will be extended to workers with caring responsibilities, employees who are parents or have responsibility for the care of a child of school age, employees with disability, mature-age employees and workers affected by domestic violence.

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