Australia has passed the right to disconnect, coming into effect today, which will protect employees who refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable. The Australian government led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pushed the ‘Right to Disconnect’ law into legislation.
This includes contact, or attempted contact, from
- their employer, or
- another person, if the contact or attempted contact is work-related.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) stated that, the new rights will empower workers to refuse unreasonable out-of-hours work contact, enabling greater work-life balance and reducing the burden of unpaid labour while families face cost-of-living pressures.
The rights are expected to reduce the amount of unpaid work hours Australians currently perform, which the Centre for Future Work estimates at an average for each worker of 5.4 hours per week or 230 hours a year, equating to $131 billion in unpaid work annually.
The right-to-disconnect also addresses the growing crisis of increasing mental health illness and injuries in modern workplaces. Since the pandemic people’s work and personal lives are increasingly blurred. The ACTU hailed the new rights as a significant victory for workers across all industries, particularly those in jobs that face the expectation of constant availability, such as teaching, community services and administrative work.
However, these hard-won rights are under threat from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, who has pledged to roll back the laws if he wins the next election. The ACTU warns eliminating the right to disconnect would exacerbate cost-of-living pressures by forcing more unpaid labour and pushing workers further into financial and mental health stress.
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