Victorian Premier urged to implement WFH laws ‘that are clear, consistent, and practical’

The state’s WFH bill, even if revised, will push small businesses to the brink, a small-business representative body has warned.

The Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) has highlighted the additional financial and compliance strains that working from home adds to small businesses in a campaign for the revocation of the Equal Opportunity Amendment (Work from Home) Bill 2026.

The bill, which has passed the lower house and is yet to be determined in the upper house, would see the right to work from home two days a week be a statutory right unless deemed unreasonable – but its implementation seems less likely with the election of Victoria’s newest Premier, Ben Carroll, who reportedly intends to reopen consultation.

COSBOA has urged the new Premier to implement workplace laws that are both more consistent and more flexible.

According to COSBOA CEO Skye Cappuccio, workplace flexibility is already instilled in the national framework, with employees able to make requests for hybrid work, and many small businesses already provide arrangements that “support flexibility where it works for the employee, the employer and the business”.

“Our concern is that Victoria’s proposed work-from-home legislation would add another layer of regulation at a time when small businesses need clarity, simplicity and confidence,” Cappuccio said.

As reported earlier this year, COSBOA told the standing committee on employment, workplace relations, skills and training that legislative changes over the last few years have each added new compliance obligations and legal uncertainty, with further changes only anticipated to compound these issues.

COSBOA’s head of industrial relations, Michael Sommerton, told the committee that new regulatory and financial obligations will have an unfair and disproportionate effect.

He said: “For large businesses with HR departments and access to employment lawyers, these changes may be manageable, but for a small-business owner, who is also the manager, the bookkeeper, the person on the shop floor, they can be overwhelming.”

Similarly, Cappuccio explained that the potential requirement for employers to cover hardware, software and IT costs may be manageable for larger organisations, but has a magnified impact on smaller businesses.

A separate state entitlement, Cappuccio added, “risks duplicating existing laws and making workplace relations more difficult for the small businesses least equipped to absorb extra compliance”.

As such, COSBOA has suggested businesses with fewer than 50 employees be exempt, with Cappuccio adding: “We ask Premier Ben Carroll and the Victorian government to use this reset to pause, listen to small business and reconsider whether this legislation should proceed.”

“At the very least, the bill should not progress until the practical impacts on small business have been fully assessed. Ideally, the government should withdraw the proposal and work within the existing national framework.”

Want to see more stories from trusted news sources?
Make HR Leader a preferred news source on Google.