Wage increase for early childhood educators
This week, the Australian Government announced it would fund a 15% increase to wages for early childhood educators, including out of school hours care (OSHC) employees.
Government
Digital ID Act passed
The Digital ID Bill passed Federal Parliament in May and will come into force in November 2024. Overall, the legislation aims to give Australians secure and effective ways in which to verify their identify for use in online transactions with government and business.
Hearing Testing Requirements under WHS Regulations
The model Work Health and Safety Regulations introduced new requirements for audiometric testing which commenced on from 1 January 2024. The relevant provisions are mirrored in all jurisdictions, except for Western Australia and Queensland, which have not adopted the relevant testing requirements as included in the Model Work Health and Safety Regulations.
New proposed digital identification laws
In recent weeks the Australian Government introduced legislation (the Digital ID Bill) to establish a regulatory regime for the accreditation of digital identification providers. Overall, the Digital ID Bill aims to give Australians secure and effective ways in which to verify their identify for use in online transactions with government and business.
A revamped system of federal administrative review
On 7 December 2023, the Australian Government introduced legislation to abolish the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) and establish a new review body called the Administrative Review Tribunal (ART). These bodies represent the federal system for reviewing decisions made under Commonwealth laws in areas including social security payments, migration, taxation and the NDIS.
Positive duty guidelines
Alert: AHRC releases guidelines for new positive duty. From 12 December 2023, the Australian Human Rights Commission will have the power to enforce compliance with the positive duty obligation under section 47(c) of Sex Discrimination Act 1984 (Cth). The positive duty requires organisations and businesses to take ‘reasonable and proportionate measures’ to eliminate, as far …
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Thinking of using AI in your organisation: read this first – the legal issues associated with the use of AI Programs
Similar to the advent of the personal computers and the internet, ChatGPT is on the path to revolutionise the way we work, and the speed in which work can be done. With this change comes impacts to a whole raft of current practices in business, which although disruptive, will, in the long term, see an …
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Privacy by design: A call to action
Griffin Legal endorses the ‘privacy by design’ approach, whereby agencies proactively embed good privacy practices into the design of new technology, practices and infrastructure. It remains important that evolving and adapting agencies keep privacy at the forefront of their minds. A privacy impact assessment (PIA) is a good way to build up privacy. What is …
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An impartial summary of the new APSC Guidance on the Personal behaviour of APS employees on social media
The Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) has published revised guidance on the use of social media by Australian Government public servants. This comes just over a year after the High Court found that anonymous tweets can be a breach of the Australian Public Service’s Code of Conduct (Comcare v Banerji [2019] HCA 23). In that …
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Revised data encryption laws explained
A controversial shake up to Australia’s data laws came into force in December 2018. The Telecommunications and Other Legislation Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018 (the Amendment) amended several pieces of legislation to enable the Government to access the communications of individuals in the name of national security. The Amendment was passed to make it …
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