‘Pay cut’: Fresh warning over threat to scrap right to disconnect   
Australians have been issued a fresh warning over the recently introduced right to disconnect laws, with the huge impact of the change finally revealed.

News.com.au
February 13, 2025

Australians have been issued a fresh warning over the recently introduced Right to Disconnect laws, with new research showing just how badly scrapping the change would impact workers.

The legislation kicked in on August 26, 2024, giving staff working at a business with 15 or more employees the right to refuse contact outside of their working hours, along with the right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact from an employer or third party.

These rules will also apply to small businesses from August 26 of this year.

The new rules apply within reason and several factors need to be considered before sending your boss to voicemail, but, ultimately, any calls, texts or emails deemed to be “unreasonable” contact can now officially be ignored.

Recent analysis by the Centre for Future Work found that, since the laws were introduced last year, the amount of unpaid overtime has fallen from 5.4 to 3.6 hours per week – a 33 per cent reduction.

The decline in unpaid work was most significant for Australians aged 18-29, who experienced about a 40 per cent reduction in their weekly unpaid workload, according to the survey of over 1000 employees.

Workers can ignore unreasonable contact outside of working hours.


However, with the looming federal election, there are concerns that benefits we have seen emerging since the introduction of the Right to Disconnect could soon disappear.

In February 2024, Opposition Leader Peter Dutton swore to roll back the laws if the Coalition wins the federal election.


Asked on Sky Newsif his party would repeal the changes that came in as part of Labor’s Industrial Relations reforms, he said, “Yes we will”.

“We will take the policy that’s in the country’s best interest that provides support for workers but doesn’t make it impossible – particularly for small businesses – to employ staff,” he said.

“Because particularly when the economy turns down, we want employers to err on the side of keeping those workers on.”

This isn’t the first time concern around the impact on small to medium businesses has been voiced.

Employment Hero head advisory of HR and EI Legal principal lawyer Simon Obee previously told news.com.au that these businesses are already feeling the effects of the increasing burden of red tape and legal compliance, with these new laws adding to the “already overflowing pool of regulations they need to comply with”.

Opposition Peter Dutton previously committed to scrapping the Right to Disconnect laws.


However, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has warned that Mr Dutton being able to follow through on his promise to scrap the laws would have a severely negative impact of everyday Aussies.

If the Right to Disconnect laws are scrapped, workers are at risk of being saddled with more than one billion extra hours of unpaid work.

Before the introduction of the laws, average Aussie wage earners completed about 3.3 billion hours of unpaid work, with that number since dropping to 2.2 billion, according to the ACTU.

“Peter Dutton has promised to take away people’s right to disconnect if he is elected, which will result in a pay cut for many workers and give the green light to bad employers to normalise free work from Australians as an expectation of the job,” ACTU Secretary Sally McManus said.

This risks adding more than 100 minutes of unpaid overtime every week for the average Australian worker.   

“It is astounding that the Coalition is so incredibly hostile to Australian workers having the right to disconnect. Politicians might like being switched onto their jobs all the time, but most people actually have lives outside of work,” she said.   

Billy, a legal professional living and working an Adelaide, is one of the many workers who have felt the positive impact of the Right to Disconnect.

As a young lawyer, the 26-year-old said the laws have been a “game changer” for his industry.

“Its given workers a way for us to actually step away from work, knowing we don’t have to be constantly available outside of hours,” he told news.com.au.

The laws have had a huge impact on Aussie workers.

Quote:


Maybe but most companies retrench 10% of their workers every year so
if you do that you'll be on their secret retrenchment list.

Same as if you don't work extra hours for free and even give up some weekends for free -
no overtime if they call you "staff"

Bobby. wrote on Feb 15^th, 2025 at 6:37am:


Or if you are in the MacIndustry of part-time casual - you simply don't get on the roster...


Sack the Bosses!!

In all the 45 years of my working life I never worked one minute of overtime that I was not paid for.

I really don’t think I’m going too start taking calls from work outside work hours suddenly because the “ government “ says I should.

I never did before the law came in and won’t after the law is removed.

Other than being disgusted by politicians waste of our money and there endless corruption and scandals they really contribute  very, very little to how I live my life.

If they all disappeared tomorrow. Not a lot in mine or anyone else life would change?