He Refused a Site Move 27 Minutes Further Away and Lost 10 Weeks' Redundancy Pay: Section 120 Explained

A business development consultant with Karingal St Laurence Limited, which trades as genU and runs the MatchWorks employment services unit, had worked since March 2021 across Parramatta (two days a week), Merrylands, Auburn and Hornsby (one day each). After the company's contracts with the Commonwealth changed in 2025 it no longer needed the Merrylands site. In August 2025 it proposed moving his Merrylands day to Fairfield, with a new title and reporting line but otherwise the same duties and conditions. He said he preferred redeployment but would not agree to Fairfield, or to a later offer of Bankstown, citing the extra travel, his health and his role caring for his partner.

The company told him in March 2026 that it would ask the Commission to reduce his redundancy pay to zero. His employment ended on 27 April 2026 and no redundancy pay was paid. On 10 September 2026 Commissioner Sloan granted the application in [2026] FWC 3458, reducing the 10 weeks he was otherwise owed under the National Employment Standards to nil (report of the decision). In a separate decision the same week, another genU worker who refused a move from Auburn to Fairfield lost 14 weeks' redundancy pay.

Section 119 of the Fair Work Act gives most employees redundancy pay on a scale from four to sixteen weeks by years of service. Section 120 lets an employer apply to the Commission to reduce that amount, possibly to nothing, where the employer "obtains other acceptable employment for the employee" or cannot pay. Two things have to be shown: the employer obtained the alternative job, and the job was acceptable. If both are made out, the Commission then decides how much of a reduction is appropriate.

Here the first was not in dispute: the Merrylands role had ceased to exist and the company had found him the Fairfield position. The contest was whether Fairfield was acceptable.

The company's evidence was that the trip from the worker's home to Fairfield took about an hour, against about 50 minutes to Merrylands. The worker's screenshot showed 1 hour and 17 minutes, and he argued that "[f]orcing a fulltime employee to absorb up to 15 hours of unpaid transit per week represents an onerous and unacceptable material alteration to the core conditions of employment". The Commissioner found the gap came down to toll roads, accepted the toll-free figure, and focused on what mattered: the difference against the existing Merrylands trip was about 27 minutes each way, and the worker had accepted at the conference that only one day a week was affected. The 15-hours-a-week figure assumed the extra travel applied every day, which it did not.

On health, the supporting material went no further than a prescription and a GP referral, and the claim that the commute would be "highly stressful" did "not rise above assertion". His partner's medical condition was accepted, but the argument built on it made the same every-day assumption. Fairfield was acceptable alternative employment. Exercising the discretion, the Commissioner had reservations about how genuinely the worker had considered redeployment, noting the company had three times invited him to discuss flexible working arrangements to support the transition, and reduced the pay to nil.

• Refusing an acceptable alternative can cost you the whole payout. "Acceptable" is judged objectively: pay, hours, duties, status, location and travel, security, and your personal circumstances all count, but the comparison is with your existing job, not with an ideal.
• Quantify the actual change. Extra travel is measured against your current commute, for the days it actually applies. A screenshot of the longest route is not enough.
• Evidence health and caring claims properly. A prescription and a referral did not carry this case. A treating doctor's report addressing the specific commute would have been a different matter.
• Engage with flexibility offers in writing. Declining to discuss flexible arrangements weighed against the worker when the Commission exercised its discretion.
• Know your number first. The redundancy pay calculator shows what section 119 gives you, and our guide to how much you are entitled to covers the exceptions. If a section 120 application lands, the guides on our legal help hub explain what representation costs and when it pays.