Premier Ben Carroll has pushed Victoria’s proposed work-from-home laws back to July 2027, giving business groups another year to pressure the government before workers get the rights they were promised. The delay, announced on Tuesday, means the laws will miss the September 1 start date and now won’t proceed until 1 July, 2027.
Who Gets Heard First
Carroll said he had already spoken with Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Sally Curtain and Australian Industry Group head Tim Piper before making the delay public. "I've spoken with Sally Curtain this morning, and Tim Piper, and I've informed them that work-from-home will not proceed on the 1st of September," he said. "It will proceed on the 1st of July, 2027."
That’s the hierarchy in plain sight. The people who stand to lose flexibility wait. The business lobby gets the call first.
Carroll said he supported working-from-home laws, but only after more consultation and amendments. "It is good for working families," he said. "Equally though, we need to make sure that our economy — everyone knows its a partnership between working families and the business community and the government." He also said he would listen to and consult on any "common-sense" amendments, while promising the legislation would pass before the November state election.
The election clock hangs over the whole thing. Workers get delay, business gets access, and the government gets to frame the whole arrangement as balance.
Business Wants the Bill Scrapped
The Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomed the delay, but not the law itself. Sally Curtain said the legislation posed a "profound risk" to the state’s economy. "The Victorian Chamber maintains that the Bill must be scrapped, as it is completely unnecessary, costly and burdensome for Victorian businesses," she said. "The premier has been in touch with us directly and has indicated he is willing to meet with us. We hope to persuade him to abandon this destructive course."
Bran Black, chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, said the government was taking "the first steps" in listening to the business community, but still wanted the legislation scrapped. "Already, Victoria has the highest unemployment rate in the country and the Victorian economy cannot afford another policy that drives investment and jobs away, which only hurts Victorians through lower living standards," he said.
Business leaders also raised concerns about flexibility in the legislation and the cost of home office arrangements for smaller businesses. The language is familiar. Costs for bosses. Burdens for firms. Risks to investment. The workers, meanwhile, are expected to absorb the consequences.
Workers Wait While Power Bargains
Greens leader Ellen Sandell attacked the delay, saying the premier had put business interests ahead of everyday Victorians. "Workers were weeks away from finally getting these hard-earned rights. Then the corporate lobby came knocking and the new Labor premier rolled over," Ms Sandell said. "Women, carers and disabled people might now be forced back into commuting full-time for at least another 10 months because the new premier has decided keeping big business happy matters more than making working people's lives easier."
That’s the cost of top-down decision-making. The people with the least power carry the longest wait.
Shadow Attorney-General James Newbury said the opposition had announced its proposed amendments to the work-from-home legislation. He said the opposition supported work-from-home laws but wanted amendments to ease a transition period. "Rolling out a change of this nature within three weeks across an entire economy is difficult," he said. "I think it's only reasonable that there's some understandable delay."
Newbury also said the opposition wanted amendments to remove the right of unions to enter the property of a person working from home. So even the so-called compromise comes with another restriction attached. Rights, then carve-outs. Access, then limits.
Reforms for Victims, Conditional on Power
At the same press conference on Tuesday, Carroll also flagged law reforms aimed at protecting victim-survivors. "We spend too much time talking about perpetrators, we need to spend more time talking about the victims," Mr Carroll said.
The government will move forward with legislation making coercive control a standalone criminal offence. Victoria will also scrap the use of "good character" references in the sentencing process. The Carroll government also announced it would work to limit the use of suppression orders, so convicted rapists would not be able to use the court orders to protect their identity.
The announcement followed the use of suppression orders by convicted rapists Ralph Carr and Tom Silvagni, which kept their identities hidden from the public. But even here, the state keeps the final say. The government stopped short of guaranteeing the change to suppression orders, saying the reforms would depend on Labor winning a fourth term at the state election.
So the rights of workers, the exposure of abusers, and the pace of reform all sit inside the same machine: consultation, delay, election timing, and the constant need to reassure the business class that nothing too disruptive will actually happen. The apparatus moves at its own pace. Everyone else waits.