Join Holman Webb's Insurance Group for our first webinar of the year: 2022 - A Year in Review.

Presented by Partner and National Insurance Group Leader John Van de Poll and taking place on Thursday 2 March 2023, this webinar will examine a range of significant cases from 2022.

In July 2022, Safe Work Australia released a new Code of Practice concerning the management of psychosocial hazards at work. This document is very similar to a Code released by SafeWork NSW in May 2021. These Codes require employers to take active steps to manage psychosocial hazards in the workplace.

Holman Webb expects that these Codes may well cause significant tension within the workplace, as they not only consider equipment and processes for doing work, they also relate to the way that staff and managers interact, and how abstract concepts such as workload and communications are managed in a way that protects workers.

The Codes are not only important for guiding employers on practices relating to the maintenance of safe workplaces – it is likely that these two Codes will form the framework through which psychological injury claims will be made and judged.  As such, it is necessary for employers to have a strong understanding of these Codes.

This two-part blog series will answer:

• What are psychosocial hazards?
• What are the requirements on employers?
• What can be done to reduce these exposures?

In July 2022, Safe Work Australia released a new Code of Practice concerning the management of psychosocial hazards at work. This document is very similar to a Code released by SafeWork NSW in May 2021. These Codes require employers to take active steps to manage psychosocial hazards in the workplace.

Holman Webb expects that these Codes may well cause significant tension within the workplace, as they not only consider equipment and processes for doing work, they also relate to the way that staff and managers interact, and how abstract concepts such as workload and communications are managed in a way that protects workers.

The Codes are not only important for guiding employers on practices relating to the maintenance of safe workplaces – it is likely that these two Codes will form the framework through which psychological injury claims will be made and judged.  As such, it is necessary for employers to have a strong understanding of these Codes.

Part II in this series will answer:

• Managing Psychosocial Hazards
• Responding to reports and incidents
• Safe Return to Work

The passage of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act 2022 (Cth) has brought about significant changes to the obligation on employers to provide Flexible Working Arrangements. Holman Webb foreshadowed these changes in our October 2022 article The Future of Flexible Work: Amendments to the Fair Work Act 2009.

In this article, we will discuss the specific changes.

The changes come into force on 6 June 2023.  It is important that employers consider the changes, given the prevalence of flexible working arrangements in the aftermath of the COVID-19 lockdowns

The Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) requires all businesses to have a privacy policy in place, if that business is an Australian Privacy Principles entity (‘APP entity’).

A privacy policy is a document that sets out how a business collects, holds, uses, and discloses personal information.

Personal information is information that identifies a person, irrespective of whether the information is true or not. This information can include a person’s name, physical or email address, photograph, telephone number, or their payment details.

The Australian Consumer Law has now changed, meaning that businesses with standard contracts will soon be at risk of incurring penalties in excess of $50 million for each unfair contract term within their standard form agreements. 

The definition of small business contracts in section 23(4) will be amended to apply to a business that has either:

1. fewer than 100 employees; or
2. an annual turnover of less than $10 million (calculated on the business’ last income year).

Casual employees are not counted unless employed on a regular and systemic basis, and part-time employees are counted as a fraction of a full-time employee.

The change to this definition potentially expands the scope of businesses that would be captured under this section, as it would no longer be confined to businesses with fewer than 20 employees.

Dennis Denuto famously said, “it’s the Constitution, it’s Mabo, it’s justice, it’s law, it’s the vibe and aah no that’s it, it’s the vibe”. 

The Constitution establishes the composition of the Australian Parliament and outlines how the federal and state Parliaments share power.  It recognises some individual rights (such as freedom of religion) and implies others (such as freedom of speech). 

On its face, it has nothing whatsoever to do with motor accidents. 

Yet for a small but significant class of people, the Constitution has a fundamental impact on how motor accident claims are handled.

The recent Court of Appeal decision in Searle v McGregor [2022] NSWCA 213 has taken an important step in clarifying matters for this particular group of people.

There is no doubt that the pandemic era has caused an economic downturn - now evident in the surge in business failures, particularly within the construction sector.

With the pandemic support schemes coming to an end, there is an imminent fear that there will be further downfall impacting already struggling businesses, which will in turn see a rise above pre-pandemic insolvency levels.

The surge in the number of business failures has reached a two and a half year high, with the largest increase in administrations over the past 12 months being within the construction industry, as companies respond to supply shortages and inflation of materials amongst other concerns.

There is no question that one of the most high-profile legal issues at the moment relates to privacy and data control.   

Recent privacy breaches have highlighted that Australia’s laws may not be as effective as we would like in requiring businesses to take appropriate precautions to prevent the inappropriate release of private information and personal data.

In part, this may be because Australia has a very low penalty regime with respect to privacy breaches. This, and other relevant matters, are currently being considered - and an update to the Privacy Act 1988 has now been drafted and introduced into Parliament.

The Privacy Legislation Amendment (Enforcement and Other Measures) Bill 2022 considers some of the core elements referred to in the 2021 Exposure Draft. In particular it increases penalties for data breach.  Currently, a corporate entity could be exposed to penalties of up to $2.22 million.

Moving forward, under the new regime, penalties will be the greater of:

• $50 million;

• 3 times the value of the benefit obtained by the company; or

• 30% of the adjusted turnover of the company during the period in which the privacy breach occurred.

Non-corporate entities and individuals will have their penalties raised from $444,000 to $2.5 million.

In September 2021, Holman Webb published an article highlighting the decision of His Honour Justice Darke in the matter of BP7 Pty Limited v Gavancorp Pty Limited [2021] NSWSC 265: Put and Call Option Agreements in Residential Property Transactions.

There has now been a legislative response to this decision.

The Conveyancing (Sale of Land) Regulation 2022 commenced on 1 September 2022.

Regulation 17(3) of the 2022 Regulation provides that “section 66S of the Act does not apply to a contract made in consequence of the exercise of an option to compel the purchase of land”.

This effect of this amendment is that there is no cooling off period for the sale of residential property made in consequence of a Put Option.