The Victorian WFH Bill: We’re Over It, and It Hasn’t Even Passed

If you’ve read our earlier pieces on this one, you’ll know the drill by now: delayed, amended, challenged, delayed again. The saga continues, except this time businesses have stopped watching from the sidelines and started spending real money getting ready for a law that still isn’t law.

Why are businesses already exhausted by this bill?

Here’s the part nobody talks about enough. Long before a bill passes, businesses start preparing for it, because getting caught flat-footed is worse than getting ready early. That means workforce assessments, policy rewrites, legal reviews, and IT audits, all paid for out of pocket, for a law that as of this week still hasn’t cleared the upper house.

We’ve said it before: this bill has been announced, paused, amended, delayed, amended again and challenged, all before a single employee has submitted a single work-from-home notice. Every round of amendments resets the clock on what businesses need to plan for. That is not a one-off cost. It’s an ongoing tax on uncertainty, and small and mid-sized businesses are the ones footing the bill.

What has Carroll actually changed this time?

To be fair to the government, the amendments announced this week are more workable than the original bill. Here’s exactly what’s changed:

1. Small business gets more time

Commencement for small business has been pushed back again, now 1 January 2028, on top of the earlier delay from 1 September 2026 to 1 July 2027 for everyone else.

2. Employers can revoke a WFH arrangement

Where circumstances change and an employee is no longer eligible, or it’s no longer reasonable to keep the arrangement going, employers can now give notice to end it. That’s a genuine improvement on the original one-way version of this bill.

3. The bar for refusing a request is lower

Employers previously had to show a work-from-home arrangement would cause a “significant adverse impact” on efficiency and productivity to refuse it. That’s been softened to a “material impact”, a meaningfully easier threshold to meet.

4. Equipment costs are more limited

Employers only have to cover essential equipment, hardware, software and secure IT access, to do the role. Internet expenses are specifically excluded.

These are sensible changes. They’re also the fourth or fifth version of this bill businesses have had to reassess against, and each version has needed its own round of legal advice and internal sign-off.

What about the constitutional challenge?

It’s still on the cards. The Property Council of Victoria has constitutional advice arguing the bill conflicts with the federal Fair Work Act and would be inoperative under section 109 of the Constitution. The major business lobby groups have reaffirmed they’re prepared to challenge it in court if it passes.

We’re not going to spend this whole piece on that fight, we’ve covered it before and it’s genuinely out of employers’ hands. The more immediate problem is what’s happening regardless of how that plays out.

Why are businesses talking about leaving Victoria?

This is the part that should worry the government more than the legal challenge does. We’ve had honest conversations with clients who are actively weighing up whether to move their head office interstate, not because of this bill alone, but because it’s the latest in a run of state-based workplace regulation that keeps adding cost and complexity without adding much certainty.

One client we worked with had already completed a full workforce review and cost assessment for this bill twice, once for the original version and again after the first round of amendments. By the time the final version lands, they’ll have paid for professional advice on three different bills that never became law. At some point, the maths on staying headquartered in Victoria starts looking different.

That’s the pattern worth naming here. Red tape doesn’t have to be malicious to be a problem. It just has to keep changing shape faster than businesses can reasonably keep up, and that’s exactly what’s happening.

Doesn’t WFH already work? So what’s the real problem?

Plenty of businesses, including a lot of our clients, already offer work from home, and it works well where it fits the role. That was never really the argument. The problem with legislating a blanket right to it is that it treats every job as if it’s the same job.

It isn’t. A desk-based operations role and a frontline retail, healthcare or trades role are not interchangeable, and a one-size-fits-all entitlement doesn’t make that gap disappear, it just makes it official. When one group of employees gets a legislated right that another group physically cannot access, you don’t get equity, you get two tiers in the same workplace, and a very real sense of entitlement and resentment sitting between them.

Flexibility works best when it’s built around the role and the business, not handed down as a blanket right regardless of what the job actually requires. That’s the bit this bill, in any version, still hasn’t solved.

Frequently asked questions

Has the Victorian WFH bill passed yet?

Not as at the time of writing. It has passed the lower house and is expected to pass the upper house shortly, but it is not yet law.

What are the latest amendments to the WFH bill?

A further delay for small business to 1 January 2028, a new ability for employers to revoke arrangements where circumstances change, a lower “material impact” threshold to refuse a request, and a narrower equipment cost obligation excluding internet expenses.

Could the bill be struck down in court?

It’s a live possibility. Constitutional advice obtained by the Property Council of Victoria argues it conflicts with the Fair Work Act. Business groups have signalled they’re ready to challenge it if it passes.

Should my business start preparing now?

Understand your obligations under the current Fair Work Act flexible working provisions, they apply today regardless of this bill. Beyond that, avoid a full policy rebuild until the final version is settled, otherwise you risk paying for the same assessment two or three times over.

Need a hand cutting through the BS?

This bill has cost businesses time and money before a single employee has used it. If you want a straight answer on what you actually need to do now versus what can wait, that’s what we’re here for. Get in touch with HR Gurus and we’ll help you cut through the BS.