Australia’s right-to-disconnect laws have come into effect, granting workers the entitlement to refuse contact outside of their working hours.

From today onwards, employees in Australia will have the right to refuse to monitor, read or respond to work communication outside of their paid hours. However, the right to disconnect does not apply to emergencies and cases where an employee’s refusal to be contacted is considered unreasonable, depending on their role, the reason for the contact, how contact is made and other factors. The new laws apply to workers at companies with more than 15 employees from today and will take effect for those at small businesses from August 22, next year.