‘When you’re working you should be paid’: Tony Burke on right to disconnect laws

Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has discussed how the right to disconnect laws protect Australian workers. “The final amendment that went through was not forbidding employers on reaching out … it was about if a worker who is not paid an allowance decides that they are not going to respond until they’re back within paid time, can they be punished for that,” Mr Burke told Sky News Australia. He said the law now says, “they can’t be punished for that”. “This principle actually says nothing more than in Australia you are meant to be paid when you are working,” he said. “If you’re already paid an allowance, there is nothing hypocritical about that because you are paid to be working. “If you’re someone on a modest income who is just paid to work between 9 and 3 and you're expected to be constantly on your phone working way outside those hours … that should not be something that happens in Australia. “When there’s a little bit of give and take no one complains about that. “There are workers … where they are employed and paid under very strict hours and then are expected to work out of those without an additional allowance – in Australia when you’re working you should be paid.”