Law Talks Episode: A look at the top legislative changes in 2024 impacting the community

Robyn: Good morning and welcome to another edition of 4CRB’s Law Talks and today we have joining us from Attwood Marshall Lawyers Legal Practice Director Jeff Garrett. Thanks for being here, Jeff.

Jeff: Morning, Robyn. Thank you.

Robyn: Well, given that we are close to the end of the year, we usually like to do a bit of a recap and look at some of the biggest things that have impacted the community this year. We thought it would be interesting to discuss some of the biggest changes to legislation that have happened this year. Firstly, in the employment space, there’s been a lot of news on this throughout 2024, but what are some of the biggest legislative changes that have come into play in 2024 impacting employers and employees?

Jeff: Yeah, quite a few, Robyn. But I suppose the main ones which will affect most people and the most talked about first one was the employees right to disconnect.

Robyn: Mm hmm.

Jeff: And, you know, everyone would have heard about how employees, particularly during COVID, working from home, were working beyond the normal office hours that you know, bosses were contacting them or managers were contacting them outside of work hours, after hours, early mornings, etcetera. And they felt obliged to respond to that. Well, the new laws around that, of course, say that, you know, the office hours are it for employees and that you know you don’t have to respond to your boss if they’re contacting you after hours, and that it’s now illegal for employers to expect that from their employees.

Robyn: Okay. And what about same work, same pay laws?

Jeff: Yeah. Similar sort of thing. This is long overdue, but it looks at disparities in the ostensibly the same work positions where you’re working in a company and for whatever reason, they’re paying someone at a different level or a higher pay than what you are. Sometimes it would be gender based, other times it would be simply the name of the position. And then you also had the issue with, you know, hire companies employees, who were hired through that they were getting different, pays. So this is pretty much just levelled all of that up so that there’s no difference between the pay levels.

Robyn: OK. And workers compensation, there’s been some significant changes in that arena as well.

Jeff: Yeah, that’s in Queensland and it relates to most of the new provisions relate to return to work and the employers obligations in relation to that and WorkCover. So, what the obliged to do now is to, you know, do their best to engage in meaningful treatment and rehabilitation with people who are injured at work and to participate in that as soon as possible, and also to look to minimise the possibility of the injured worker developing a secondary psychological injury because the process of after someone suffers a physical injury at work Robyn they quite often get mistreated by their employer and WorkCover. Yeah. And that just adds another psychological layer on top of their physical injuries.

So, this legislation is designed to force the employer and won’t cover to speed that process up and to enter into meaningful ways to have the injured worker treated and respected in relation to coming back to work.

Robyn: Yeah. It’s nice to see a focus on employee health and wellbeing. What about in the digital space? As the world continues to evolve and we rely heavily on digital communications and technologies, which changes have we seen to the law this year or proposed changes that will impact the community:

Jeff: Well, there’s a couple that have come through very recently with the raft of bills that were passed through the House of Representatives recently.

The biggest one probably is the social media ban for kids under 16. I mean that is huge and it appears to be the first legislation of its kind in the world. There’s question marks around how it’s going to be enforced and you know how it’s going to operate.

But you know, the whole thrust of it is to save our younger kids from the insidious ways that social media has taken over not only their attention spans, but their overall mental health and physical health is suffering as a result of this.

I think we’ve created a monster with this digital impact on people’s lives and particularly kids and young teenagers, and I think we’ve all got stories and know of family members who suffer from this, it’s a real addiction that these kids have to their phones and their devices. It’s quite extraordinary.

And the impact that has on their overall mental health, their physical health, it’s just shocking. It interrupts their sleep. They have the attention span of a moth. It’s just really bad and I think the federal government should be commended for stepping in and doing something like this.

All the big companies, of course are up in arms over this. You know, there is imposed fines of $50 million for the corporations if they don’t comply, and it’s probably only the start of it. But I think that if they can make it stick, that maybe it’s going to lead to some fundamental changes in relation to the impact of these digital services on not just kids, but perhaps society generally.

Robyn: Well, I think that’s a valid point, Jeff. I mean, yes, the children, it’s hard enough as an adult with social media sometimes, and we’ve heard plenty of stories of, you know, celebrities in the public eye are victims of social media bullying, tough to navigate as an adult, let alone as a child.

Jeff: It’s just unbelievable. You know it’s not just social media. You’ve got the science that sits behind, you know, just pick Google, and the billions of people that use Google and the impact and influence that that company has on all of its users, you know, they have sections in there who you know specialise, you know, psychologists who specialise in ways to get people addicted to their screens.

Robyn: Terrible.

Jeff: And you know that endless scrolling. And the fellow who invented that, you know, regrets it because it’s such a bad thing, and we all do it. You know, people go to social media and next thing an hour goes by and you’re down that rabbit hole and it’s crazy. And the impact on people’s, you know, attentions spans and their ability to focus is it’s just a fundamental thing and it’s not just kids, you know it’s older people who get sucked into this thing as well and the whole digital world and emails and you know, texts and everything’s instant. And people expect an instant answer. I mean it’s the distraction is just unbelievable across the board in our society now.

So, I think this is a good start.

Robyn: Yeah, I think as you say it’s a step in the right direction. And it will be fascinating to see how this rolls out over the next 12 months. What about changes to protecting privacy?

Jeff: Yeah, well the Privacy Act got a bit of an overhaul. And probably overdue. There’s a number of things in relation to protecting people’s privacy. You know, we all, we saw those major data breaches with some of the bigger companies, the Optus one springs to mind.

Robyn: Yes.

Jeff: You know, so the main reforms are children’s online privacy code, streamlined in some information sharing regime when there’s a data breach, so you can get access to whether your data has come in and you know the problem with the Optus one was no one knew whose data had been compromised and when they had to get a new licence or, you know, whatever.

And criminalising people’s use of personal data. Personal data in when they you know, menacing or harassing someone, those sorts of things.

And also, the biggest thing in the Act, I believe is that it creates a statutory action or cause of action for damages. The people who have been wronged or their privacy laws, breached, which gives rise to actions for damages.

So, I think that’s really important, and you know again get back to that digital world and our data. You know that example I used at Google. They’ve got such psychological profiles on all of us who use social media and even surf on the web. How they use that data, you know, is really important. So I think this is a really big step and I think that in future that statutory causes of action for damages for breaches is, I think that’s going to open a real can of worms, and rightly so.

Robyn: Yes.

Jeff: Because, you know, our privacy should be protected that way.

Robyn: And Jeff, on a topic that’s important to a lot of our listeners, what about all the changes that were meant to come into effect for aged care? Has much changed in that arena this year?

Jeff: Yeah. Well, nothing’s really changed in the sense that the new Aged Care Act isn’t expected to commence until July next year. And there’s a raft of changes that will be coming in and you know it’s going to tidy up a lot of things in relation to people who have care packages, you know, there’s going to be a single entry point and very clear eligibility requirements in relation to qualifying for care packages, going into care facilities, you know the safety issues in relation to aged care facilities, the decision making of older people is going to be, have statutory protections…

Robyn: Allowing them to have greater control and choice, is that..

Jeff: Yeah, because, look as soon as they drift into some form of whether it be dementia or some other form of capacity. It’s like their decision making is just snatched away from them and, you know, done by someone else and it’s really funny, you know, with some capacity and there’s a great description of it, in an old House of Lords decision case where they likened it to twilight, you know the onset of twilight.

How do you describe that when it changes from you know day till night and there’s that twilight zone? Well, that’s what dementia is. Like you know, sometimes people can be lucid. They know enough around some of the decision making that they can make. But they often ignored.

Robyn: Yes.

Jeff: So, I think that’s a really important recognition in the legislation that, you know, people’s decision making is listened to and that they’re respected for what they would like to happen.

Robyn: Yeah. And other than the changes to the aged care sector, which I think is safe to say, we are all wanting to see next year, what other changes, what other issues impacting the community would you like to see further change in 2025, Jeff?

Jeff: Yeah, I think the main things for me that we haven’t talked about, domestic and family violence I would like to see the spotlight remain on that and continued efforts to curtail that.

I think the youth crime in Queensland is going to be a big thing. The latest legislation that the newly elected LNP government has brought out, they’re talking about Gaoling 10-year-old kids for life. I don’t know whether that’s the right way too address that.

And then you know there’s also the call for the public trustee gag laws to be repealed in Queensland. I think they’re probably the three main causes that I’d be supporting for 25.

Robyn: Yeah. Unfortunately, domestic and family violence and youth crime are two topics that continue to dominate our headlines and hopefully we can see positive changes in 2025.

Thanks for joining us this morning, Jeff.

Jeff: Thank you, Robyn.

Robyn: You’ve been listening to law talks here on 4CRB, which you can hear every Friday morning from 9 o’clock.