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https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/the-strict-eligibility-test-for-working-from-home-revealed-in-new-laws-20260617-p607o1.html?utm_source=theage-web&utm_medium=share_article&utm_campaign=national&utm_content=subscriber+alldigital&utm_term=product_feature

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The strict eligibility test for working from home revealed in new laws

Employers trying to stop staff working from home will need to prove it has a “significant” negative impact on business or is incompatible with their role under new laws introduced to parliament.

Businesses will also need to buy equipment for workers’ home offices and could be ordered to pay compensation for unfairly denying them the right to work remotely two days a week.

Employers would have to pay for equipment so staff can work from home under the laws.
Employers would have to pay for equipment so staff can work from home under the laws. Louise Kennerley
The legislation establishes the right to work from home for certain employees, in what Premier Jacinta Allan says is a landmark improvement in conditions for working people.

Big business groups have blasted the laws as an unnecessary intervention, given most workplaces already allow working from home where it is practical. Some industrial relations lawyers predict an avalanche of legal disputes over what jobs can reasonably be done remotely.

A full version of the laws, released on Wednesday, spells out a strict test bosses will have to apply in deciding whether they can stop an employee from spending two days a week at home, or a pro rata equivalent for part-timers.

Workers will need to notify their employer in writing that they intend to start working from home. Employers must respond within 21 days and can only refuse or limit flexible work if it is “not reasonable”.

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The “not reasonable” decision must be based on specific considerations, including the “inherent requirements” of the role, such as access to equipment or face-to-face interaction with customers.

Other grounds to refuse are:

That it would require the employer to make impractical changes to working arrangements or hire new staff

The work from home legislation is a key plank of Premier Jacinta Allan’s pitch to working families struggling with cost-of-living.
The work from home legislation is a key plank of Premier Jacinta Allan’s pitch to working families struggling with cost-of-living.Ruby Alexander
Employers will also have to pay “reasonable costs” for equipment so workers can do their job from home.

Workers on probation, or on apprenticeship, traineeship or graduate programs are not eligible to work from home under the laws. Casual employees will qualify if they work on a “regular and systematic basis”.

Workers will be able to take their employer to the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission (VEOHRC) for conciliation over work-from-home disputes, and then to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal if not resolved.

Employees already have the right under the federal Fair Work Act to request flexible working arrangements to accommodate specific needs, such as caring for children or having a disability, and employers can only refuse on “reasonable” business grounds.

Natalie Gaspar, an employment partner at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, said the Victorian laws significantly strengthened workers’ ability to secure work-from-home arrangements by making it a default right and setting a high bar for employers to refuse it.

Industrial relations
Business lobby predicts lawyers’ picnic over Victoria’s work-from-home laws
“The use of that language – significant adverse impact, significant decrease in productivity – is deliberate. It demonstrates the intention to set the bar really high,” Gaspar said.

“If there is some productivity decrease, if there is some impact on customer relationships or productivity, that is not a basis [for refusal]. That must be ‘significant’. That’s quite an important and stark point.”

However, Gaspar said workers and employers would still disagree over what constituted a “significant” impact, and many of these disputes would end up in VCAT.

“There will be some helpful guidance for employers that will come out of the early cases dealing with this, but it is a brave new world,” she said.

Gaspar said VCAT could ultimately order an employer who had unreasonably refused working from home rights to pay compensation to workers for transport costs or other expenses incurred coming into their workplace every day.

Ahead of the November state election, the working from home laws are a centrepiece of Allan’s pitch to working Victorians straining under the skyrocketing cost-of-living and being tempted by the right-wing populism of One Nation.

The government claims families can save time and up to $5000 a year in transport costs by working from home two days a week, but that some employers are unreasonably refusing flexible work.

While VEOHRC and VCAT are already struggling to clear their existing case loads, Holding Redlich workplace partner Charles Power said that under the legislation, workers could seek interim orders from the tribunal permitting them to work from home while the matter is resolved.

That, along with the fact that there is no cost to launch action in VCAT, could make it easier for workers to challenge their bosses’ decisions than it is under existing workplace laws.

“The VCAT workload is set for an increase,” Power said.

The Coalition has not indicated if it will support the laws, which will be debated when Parliament returns from its winter break in late July.

If passed, they would come into effect on September 1, however businesses with fewer than 15 employees will have until July 2027 to comply.

The strict eligibility test for working from home revealed in new laws Bosses will have to prove a ‘significant’ negative impact before ordering staff back to the office under proposed new laws.

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Mystery challenge to Andrews-era corruption report revives calls for law changes

Updated May 22, 2026 — 5:42pm,first published 11:53am

Victoria’s peak anti-corruption body says the latest attempt to stymie a long-running investigation into dealings between former premier Daniel Andrews and a union boss shows it needs greater powers to do its job.

Two mystery parties who cannot be identified for legal reasons have launched Supreme Court action to stop the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission publishing a report into corruption allegations centred on 10-year-old dealings between Andrews and United Firefighters Union national secretary Peter Marshall.

Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews and United Firefighters Union boss Peter Marshall. Operation Richmond centred on dealings between the Andrews government and the union.
Former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews and United Firefighters Union boss Peter Marshall. Operation Richmond centred on dealings between the Andrews government and the union.Marija Ercegovac

Although the case has been listed for a “rapid hearing” at the end of next month, it forced IBAC to shelve its unpublished report into Operation Richmond, an anti-corruption probe in which both Andrews and Marshall were privately questioned about their conduct.

IBAC Commissioner Victoria Elliott – the third commissioner to have carriage of the Richmond investigation – said her agency’s powers needed to be boosted to enable it to hold more public hearings.

If these powers had been in place when Operation Richmond began, both Andrews and Marshall would have been questioned in open hearings and their sworn testimony widely reported.

Give corruption watchdog teeth to follow the money, government told
“As a general principle of public integrity, Victorians deserve to know more about IBAC’s efforts to expose and prevent corruption and police misconduct – and we want to tell you,” Elliott said in a statement released on Friday.

“But to do that, IBAC’s legislation needs to change, as it currently limits our ability to share what we believe to be in the public interest.

“Victorians want – and should have – greater insight into what is being done to address allegations of corruption and misconduct.”

Under the current laws, IBAC must demonstrate “exceptional circumstances” to hold public hearings and clear significant legal hurdles to publish its findings.

IBAC a ‘haven for politicians’, warns former commissioner Redlich
A preliminary Supreme Court hearing into the fresh legal challenge was told on Friday that IBAC’s entire report into Operation Richmond was provided to one of the unnamed plaintiffs on Thursday. This was done to satisfy the agency’s requirement to provide natural justice to anyone subject to adverse findings.

The latest twist in Operation Richmond has elevated Victoria’s anti-corruption framework, which is substantially weaker than that in force in NSW, to a state election issue. Shadow attorney-general James Newbury said a Coalition government would give IBAC greater powers if elected.

“Corruption is growing in Victoria, and the Coalition will stamp it out,” Newbury told The Age.

“The Coalition will provide IBAC with follow-the-money powers, we will stop hearings from being held almost solely behind closed doors, and we commit to doing whatever it takes to publicly release the Operation Richmond corruption report.”

It was unclear after Friday’s hearing before Justice Claire Harris whether the Operation Richmond report will be published before the November 28 election.

Lawyers for the unidentified plaintiffs failed in an application to permanently conceal their identities – the application was opposed by IBAC and media companies including The Age – but immediately flagged an appeal.

Whatever the outcome of the “rapid hearing” into the substantive issues raised in the case, the plaintiffs will have further appeal rights.

The lawyers behind this latest legal manoeuvre – Slater and Gordon head of industrial and employment law Geoff Borenstein and senior counsel Nicholas Wood, SC – are the same team who took IBAC to the High Court three years ago on a previous challenge against Operation Richmond.

The United Firefighters Union was one of the plaintiffs in that case.

IBAC was poised to publish its final report into Operation Richmond on Monday before the latest legal challenge was launched.

Legal counsel for IBAC Frances Gordon, KC, on Friday gave an undertaking to Harris that the anti-corruption agency would not publish the report, or provide any further advance copies of it to other parties, before the court dealt with the legal challenge.

“I think there is a real public interest in this moving very quickly,” the judge said.

The court on Friday took a series of extraordinary steps to preserve the anonymity of the mystery litigants. The case was filed as “Restricted v Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission”, the court file concealed from public view and part of Friday’s hearing held behind closed doors.

Four years too late, Andrews’ secret week in the witness box may finally come to light

A lawyer representing The Age and other media groups, Justin Quill from Thompsons, was refused permission to remain in court while the identity of the plaintiff was discussed.

“It is hard to imagine a matter in this court that has a greater public interest,” Quill told the judge. “This court is being asked to restrict the flow of information to our parliament. That is an extraordinary thing that your honour is being asked to do.

“The public has an enormous interest in understanding the reasons why … and what is going on.”

This masthead has previously reported that in December 2021, Andrews was privately examined by IBAC in relation to Operation Richmond and three other IBAC investigations.

Four-and-a-half years later, Victorians have been provided no details of what their state’s most senior politician told IBAC in relation to his dealings with a powerful union leader.

IBAC
The longest dispute: How the firefighters’ union took centre stage
Final reports into the other matters – operations Daintree, Sandon and Watts – have all been published. None contained findings of corrupt conduct against Andrews.

Andrews in 2022 refused to confirm whether he had been examined by IBAC. “If you want to know what IBAC has done or hasn’t done, who they’ve done it with, then you should go and talk to them,” he told reporters.

The Operation Richmond investigation centred on a contentious enterprise agreement struck between the United Firefighters Union and the Andrews government in 2016.

In the lead-up to the 2014 state election, which returned Labor to power, firefighters acting on the instructions of the union campaigned for Labor at marginal seat polling booths.

Then-emergency services minister Jane Garrett, who died in 2022, was responsible for negotiating the EBA with Marshall, the union’s long-serving national secretary. She quit her post in protest after Andrews intervened in negotiations and struck a deal with Marshall that gave the union unprecedented influence over the operations of the Country Fire Authority.

Operation Richmond began in 2019 under former IBAC commissioner Robert Redlich and was largely complete when he left office in 2022. The investigation continued under acting commissioner Stephen Farrow and is now being overseen by Elliott, who took over the agency in 2023.

Mystery challenge to Andrews-era corruption report revives calls for law changes IBAC has agreed to shelve its long-awaited report into the Andrews government’s dealings with the United Firefighters Union until the latest legal challenge is resolved.

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When Brian Schmidt left the Australian National University in 2023, academics were fervently hoping the new vice chancellor would be an experienced administrator with a rich history of running a university.

“Sort of a grown-up,” said one former academic, speaking anonymously because he remains in the sector, “is who we were hoping for.”

They got Genevieve Bell, an experienced academic who had never run a university before.

A magnet for controversy during her ill-fated time as vice chancellor that ended in September last year, Bell made headlines as the ANU’s financial position became less and less tenable. She is once more under fire after claims she was suspended pending the investigation of allegations of serious misconduct for allegedly making a friend with no degree a professor.

Andrew Meares, a former Herald photographer, joined the ANU in 2019 after a stint as Bill Shorten’s official photographer. According to the Saturday Paper, he applied for a full professorship in 2023. This was unsuccessful, but in 2024 he found himself in the job despite the fact he has no university qualifications.

Bishop stares down critics as embattled ANU vice chancellor resigns
Sources close to the ANU say that Bell was banned from the university’s grounds during her alleged suspension. While the investigation into Meares’ promotion continues, Bell has returned to campus.

According to the university, Bell is on 12 months’ study leave, part of a settlement package when she left the VC role after two years.

ANU’s council, including then-chancellor Julie Bishop, appointed Bell to oversee the university as its financial position became apparent, much to the anger of staff and students.

Schmidt’s decision to make the ANU a more personable campus led the university down the path of fewer students at a time almost all other universities were relentlessly pursuing international students. It backfired – when the pandemic hit, the university lacked the cash reserves of other institutions, leading to ham-fisted attempts to claw back $250 million in savings.

The animosity in the ANU community grew: Bell faced calls to resign and was subject to a vote of no confidence over her handling of the financial situation facing the university. She ultimately left the VC role in September, although she remained at the ANU, as does Meares.

“Professor Andrew Meares is lead of the Cybernetic Futures group … Andrew leads cybernetic research and education experiences in cybernetic futures, the Cybernetic Imagination residency program, and is a co-investigator of an ongoing research project on Australia’s first digital system, the Overland Telegraph Line,” says his biography on the ANU website.

Sources at the ANU say Meares would have been suitable as a “professor in practice” – a role introduced by Schmidt for people with industry experience that could benefit the university and its students but who lacked formal qualifications.

“That would’ve made sense. It would also make sense if Bell had been involved, because the professor in practice jobs were run centrally through the VC’s office, unlike the promotion of ordinary academics,” said another ex-ANU staffer.

Meares’ ANU research page shows work on one paper from 2025 entitled “National Civil Preparedness in Australia and Civil-Military Coordination”. Bell is a co-author. The university said in a statement that Bell has not been suspended but is on study leave and that it would not comment “on speculative claims that may compromise individual privacy and reputation”.

It said that Meares “is a very well-regarded member of the School of Cybernetics and the College of Systems and Society.”

Meares and Bell were contacted for comment.

Allegations of ‘serious misconduct’: Inside the latest ANU controversy The ANU says vice-chancellor Genevieve Bell is on study leave, following the revelation of damning allegations.