Australia’s Fair Work Commission has ruled that the Clerks – Private Sector Award must include a right for covered employees to request working from home. The Australian Services Union described the decision as a significant expansion of flexibility for hundreds of thousands of administrative workers, particularly those balancing work with caring responsibilities, while employers had argued against changing existing arrangements.

The ruling does not require employers to approve every request: the Commission rejected the union’s proposed presumption in favour of approval, noting that most requests are already granted in full or partly. A Commission-commissioned survey found 22 refusals among 799 respondents, and it said remote work was already widespread in the sector; 32.2% of employees reported a moderate positive effect on work-life balance and 53.5% a significant positive effect. The decision also preserved existing overtime and penalty-rate protections, which business groups had reportedly sought to trade off against broader remote-work access.