The workplace laws most at-risk under a Dutton government

In a recent live stream, and with the Australian federal election drawing closer, a senior legal writer from Practical Law at Thomson Reuters has outlined the laws that are likely to be reformed should Peter Dutton become our next prime minister.

If the Liberal-National Coalition, Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton, assumes power after the next federal election, due by 17 May, changes to existing workplace legislation are expected.

In a recent live stream, hosted by HR Leader’s sister brand, Lawyers Weekly, in collaboration with Thomson Reuters, Sophie Bonnette, a senior lawyer writer in employment law for Practical Law at Thomson Reuters, shared insights into potential reforms from this coalition that could significantly impact employee rights and business regulations.

One of the most notable changes Bonnette expressed that we could see under a Dutton government is the potential repeal of the Right to Disconnect, which came into effect mid-last year.

Introduced to protect employees from being expected to remain constantly available outside of working hours, Bonnette noted that while this measure is significant, its impact has been more pronounced on businesses than on legal cases or Fair Work Commission hearings.

“We haven’t seen a lot of disputes in this area. I think it’s had more of a sort of impact on the business level, but it hasn’t played out a lot in sort of our Fair Work Commission or the courts or anything like that,” Bonnette said.

She stressed that the Dutton Coalition’s agenda to remove this right aligns with their “promise and their focus on small business” during their election campaign.

While speaking on 2SM Radio late last week, Senator Michaelia Cash – the Coalition’s shadow attorney-general, who will likely serve as A-G in a Dutton-led government – criticised the Right to Disconnect, arguing that it places undue strain on small businesses by limiting workforce availability and reducing economic activity in key business districts.

“I was in Melbourne a little while ago. You walk around the streets of Melbourne and you talk to the small-business people, and in particular, the cafes, the lunch bars, the coffee shops, and people forget the real-life impact of public servants not being in the office,” Cash said.

She revealed that the Dutton Coalition intends to adopt a “commonsense approach” when it comes to working from home.

Modifying the classification of casual employment, which respected a significant portion of the workforce in small businesses, Bonnette explained, could lead to considerable implications for these businesses.

“It really impacts, when there’s a political football like that going to and from, it can really hit the bottom line of a small business hard,” Bonnette said.

As recently reported by HR Leader, Cash confirmed in an interview with Sky News the repeal of these laws that Labor introduced.

Cash argued that these reforms were causing harm to Australian SMBs: “They have sent a chilling effect, in particular across small businesses, and we have said, yes, we will seek to repeal them.”

“I mean, if Mr Albanese does not understand the cost, the complexity, and the confusion that our small businesses are under – not just because of the changes to industrial relation laws, but just the weight of the regulatory burden. Well, then, shame on Mr Albanese.”

In addition to these proposed changes, Bonnette also speculated that enterprise bargaining and industrial relations reforms could be revisited under a Dutton government.

“Whilst not as explicit, just feeling it in my waters and crystal ball gazing, I would suspect enterprise bargaining would also, and industrial would also be on the cards,” Bonnette said.

These reforms, Bonnette acknowledged, had sparked “a lot of controversy when they came in” and caused “a lot of fear”.

While the full impact of these changes has yet to be fully realised, Bonnette believes that many stakeholders in the Coalition’s ranks would likely push for a reduction in the scope of these reforms.

“We haven’t seen it fully play out yet, the impact of those reforms. However, I suspect there would be a lot of significant stakeholders in that party room that would be looking to pare back quite a bit of those reforms,” Bonnette said.