If you are planning to buy a community title scheme property (also known as strata or group title), there are some important legal matters that you should know. What is a community title scheme property? A community title scheme is essentially an area of land that is divided into at least two lots or units...

When out-of-hours conduct are cause for dismissal Our previous blog “When does out-of-hours conduct cause for employee dismissal?” highlighted the consequences for employees who engage in certain conduct outside work hours such as a fight, sexual harassment, social media content and public drinking. Recent cases of Sydney Trains v Andrew Bobrenitsky (2022) and Corry v...

The superannuation guarantee (SG) is the minimum percentage of a salary that an employer must contribute to an employee’s superannuation fund. The percentage is legislated and controlled by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). The current SG percentage is 10% of employees’ ordinary time earnings. From 1 July 2022, the SG will increase from 10% to...

Changes to REIQ residential contract from 20 January 2022. On 20 January 2022, the Contract for Houses and Residential Land was amended and now includes new standard terms to accommodate new court decisions and updated legislation. The following clauses have significant impact on the sale and purchase of residences. Clause 7.8 Compliant Smoke Alarms The...

Can an employer direct an employee to be vaccinated? We have previously written about the COVID-19 business restrictions in Queensland and how an employer may require an employee to be vaccinated. While that may be the case, it is not as straight forward as it may seem. There are specific considerations when determining who must...

COVID-19 business restrictions and requirements in Queensland, on 8 October 2021, the Chief Health Officer issued directions in accordance with emergency powers arising from the declared public health emergency. These directions set out the requirements that restricted businesses in Queensland must follow. Restricted businesses included businesses in the hospitality, entertainment venues, personal care services industries,...

Direction from Chief Health Officer – Emergency powers arising from COVID-19 While there has been some debate regarding mandatory vaccination requirements, the recent public health direction has set out new requirements for workers in healthcare, their employees, and responsible persons in healthcare settings, including limited exceptions. On 29 January 2020, the Minister for Health and...

Adjudication is a dispute resolution process to help resolve disagreements about progress payments and money owed....

Welcome to part 3 of our series of articles discussing the basics of the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld)(BIFA).  So far in this series we’ve covered: Payment claims; and Payment schedules. If you’ve missed these articles, be sure to read them here. What is a reference date? It’s a date stated...

We’ve recently launched our Building and Construction Law Basics series to give you the basics of the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017 (Qld) (BIFA) and help those working in the building and construction industry shape their business practices and improve their prospects of successfully making or defending a claim for payment under...