Right to Disconnect: Now All Employers

About the right to disconnect took effect for large employers (15+ employees) on 26 August 2024 and was extended to all employers including small businesses from 26 August 2025. This means every Australian employee now has the legal right to refuse to monitor, read, or respond to contact from their employer (or a third party like a client) outside of their working hours, unless the refusal is unreasonable. The law was introduced as part of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes No. 2) Act 2024.

The short answer? It does not prohibit employers from sending messages — it protects employees from being required to respond. This is a significant shift for Australian workplace culture, where after-hours contact had become normalised in many industries.

The Fair Work Act doesn't define a rigid list of what is reasonable or unreasonable. Instead, it sets out factors to consider: the reason for the contact and its urgency, how the contact is made and how disruptive it is, whether the employee is compensated (e.g., on-call allowance), the employee's role and level of responsibility, and the employee's personal circumstances including family or caring responsibilities. For example, a text asking a retail worker to cover a shift tomorrow at 11pm is more likely unreasonable, while a call to a senior manager about a genuine workplace emergency at 8pm may be reasonable.

Routine emails that do not require an immediate response are generally fine to send — the employee simply does not need to respond until their next working day.

If you believe your employer is unreasonably contacting you outside hours, the recommended process is: first, raise it directly with your employer or manager — many cases are resolved informally. If the issue persists, you can apply to the Fair Work Commission for a 'stop order' under section 333M of the Fair Work Act. The FWC will assess the circumstances and may order the employer to stop the unreasonable contact.

Penalties for breaching a stop order can be up to $19,800 for an individual or $99,000 for a body corporate per contravention. You can't be disciplined, demoted, or dismissed for exercising your right to disconnect — this would likely constitute adverse action under the general protections provisions and could result in a separate claim.

So, the right to disconnect does NOT mean your employer can't contact you at all outside hours — it means you can refuse to respond if the contact is unreasonable. It does NOT apply to genuine emergencies or situations where you are being paid to be on-call. It does NOT prevent your employer from sending you a roster for the next week or an email that doesn't require an immediate response.

It does NOT mean you can ignore all messages and claim the right to disconnect — reasonableness is assessed case by case. And it does NOT override specific on-call or availability clauses in your award or enterprise agreement, though those clauses must themselves be reasonable.

The law is about protecting rest time, not creating an absolute communication blackout.