New, from me, in the Industrial Law Journal: can law adequately respond to the discrimination risks posed by AI and LLMs at work? I argue new technologies are already revealing the cracks in discrimination law, and call for targeted reform. doi.org/10.1093/indl...

For those following Tickle v Giggle - decisive win for Ms Tickle.

Delighted to see this book published! It captures contributions from an important project on empirical evidence in judging. My chapter explores the use of empirical evidence in equality law-making, focusing on the attempted justification of age discrimination in pension reform in McCloud-Sargeant.

Significant decision from the Fair Work Commission restricting junior rates and youth wages in key awards. A major win, but still more work to do to advance age equality at work. www.fwc.gov.au/documents/si...

Join us for a seminar, co-hosted with the Asian Law Centre, on 'A “Grand Strategy for Social Justice and Development”: Blas Ople and Authoritarian Labour Regulation in the Philippines' with Petra Mahy on Tuesday, 31 March 2026 @ 1:00pm. Registration: events.unimelb.edu.au/ALC/event/51...

Two more Assistant Professor roles being advertised at Warwick Law School. We're a lovely bunch, if a little feisty.

Glad to be here with you all, Bluesky. This account will be used to share research and events happening at the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law (CELRL) at Melbourne Law School, The University of Melbourne. Follow us to stay in touch!

Law friends; if you are using Jurism as a reference manager, and it is causing all sorts of headaches: after some trial and error, my guide to going back to Zotero. www.academickaizen.com/2026/02/22/s...

Law friends; if you are using Jurism as a reference manager, and it is causing all sorts of headaches: after some trial and error, my guide to going back to Zotero. www.academickaizen.com/2026/02/22/s...

Employment Appeal Tribunal rules that Great Ormond Street Hospital indirectly discriminated against 80 black and minority ethnic cleaners because of the delay they experienced in obtaining NHS pay and benefits after their services were brought in house in 2021 www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

‘Our analysis of job postings data from the US, UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands shows no clear evidence that AI is behind the slowdown in early-career employment across much of the west’ @jburnmurdoch.ft.com @sarahoconnorft.ft.com www.ft.com/content/7fbc...

The EAT has allowed an appeal by Latin American seasonal farm workers to proceed, after it was struck out for missing a tribunal deadline. The workers, supported by @uvwunion.bsky.social , argued it is unjust and irrational to expect undocumented workers in crisis to navigate complex legal systems

UTS is hiring! Great faculty, great city. All teaching areas with particular interest in land law, commercial law, civil procedure, Indigenous legal relations. recruitment.uts.edu.au/OA_HTML/OA.j...

Significant detail in the government's #child #poverty strategy: section 1 of the #Equality Act (2010), the socio-economic duty, will be commenced and public authorities will have to consider the impact of their #policies on poverty and #inequality. Could be transformational?

UWA Law School is hiring! Lvl B is only open to applicants with working rights in #AUS. Applications close 3 December 2025. Start date negotiable. (I encourage #intLaw people to apply! Ping @anzsil.org) #jobs #jobFairy #academia #lecturer #higherEd external.jobs.uwa.edu.au/cw/en/job/52...

This is great to see, but should apply to all grounds of discrimination - not just sexual harassment. Regulating just one area is going to create a mess.

More than *anything* the people who actually know how technology works, who actually build things, wish that people would treat LLMs like every other technology, and be normal about them. Don't build a religion about them, don't force them on people, don't ignore the problems. Just be normal.

“most of the studies [conducted] find that the industry- and economy-wide productivity gains that have been promised by AI companies are not happening.”

This is a serious breach of privacy. Yet employee records have limited protection under federal privacy law. We urgently need legal change to better protect employee privacy. dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

I haven't fully read this yet but it contains a wonderful heading: "Maching Yearning for a Better Present"

SafeWork NSW orders UTS to pause job cuts due to risk of ‘psychological harm’

It gets worse. The Deloitte report suspected of using AI contains a fake quote and erroneous citations to one of the leading cases on Robodebt. www.afr.com//companies/p...

I've been reading the court docs and it is incredibly upsetting reading. Absolutely awful.

CBA has apologised to 45 affected employees after finding customer service roles were not redundant despite introducing an AI-powered "voice-bot", but the union says the damage is done.

I dug into this in the Alternative Law Journal, and trials of the four day work week are absolutely worth expanding in Australia if we want to boost productivity. doi.org/10.1177/1037...

If Ted Chiang, a truly superb creative writer (also; a background in compsci), is happy using the gym robot analogy to explain why using chatbots at university is antithetical to the purpose you're paying money and forgoing paid work to be there then I'm fortified in my view it's a good one.

In the 'things that could go wrong with genAI that could have been predicted and yet are still happening' camp... AI facilitates medical sexism/gendered health(non)care www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"An algorithm instructed to ignore race and gender is not unbiased; it silently reproduces existing patterns of discrimination while labeling those patterns as “truth.”" www.techpolicy.press/the-false-ne...

Excellent thread.

Our firm-level work not only surveyed 1000 UK firms about tech adoption, but also did 12 in-depth case studies of AI and automation, with hundreds of hours of interviews with workers about the impact of these tools on the quality of their work, and on their wellbeing.

The federal government has appointed Australia's first permanent National Commissioner for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children and Young People.

I spent seven years writing a book on this and she just… said it in three succinct paragraphs to politico.

BREAKING: The EU Commission has released a mandatory template for AI developers to disclose training data. Unlike the Code of Practice, this is not optional. It could have global fallout, as rights holders abroad might use it to sue over copyright. digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/e...

Totally coincidentally, this from me yesterday: “A four-day week could help Australia’s economy” on Pursuit pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/a-f...

Just published, open access, in the Alternative Law Journal: 'Productivity and the four-day work week' I consider whether adopting a four-day work week in Australian labour law could boost labour productivity, drawing on existing trials in Australia and internationally. doi.org/10.1177/1037...

Our article "Beyond the ‘Gig Economy’: Towards Variable Experiences of Job Quality in Platform Work" has been published by 'Work, Employment and Society'. With Nick Martindale and @brendanburchell.bsky.social doi.org/10.1177/0950...

Expressions of Interest have opened for a new PhD scholarship in partnership with the Reproductive Justice Hallmark Research Initiative – please share! socialequity.unimelb.edu.au/news/latest/... #AcademicSky #ReproductiveJustice #UniMelb

“Far from a time-saving silver bullet .… a tool promoted as labour-saving demands significant labour” Can chatbots aid law teaching? Probably not yet theconversation.com/researchers-...

Are you being watched at work? A new Victorian parliamentary committee report calls for tougher #WorkplaceSurveillance controls, heeding NTEU input based on member submissions by NTEU's Joo-Cheong Tham and team: theconversation.com/being-monito... #HigherEd #auspol #Auspol2025

The latest from me, Joo Cheong Tham and Jake Goldenfein on workplace surveillance, and what a Victorian inquiry says we should do to regulate it.

Research fellow - job opportunity (with me!) - University of Melbourne Law School - 0.5 FTE, to December 2027. Health law and genomic data governance as part of national LINEAGE project jobs.unimelb.edu.au/en/job/92007...

New article: ‘Collective Action, Voice and Equality: Equality Bargaining to Achieve More Equal Futures?’, just published open access in the Adelaide Law Review. I examine equality bargaining in Australian agreements, and conclude there is still a way to go. law.adelaide.edu.au/ua/media/330...

Two more AI hallucinations in Australian court judgements today

New, from me: should legal researchers use AI and LLMs to help speed up analysis? In short, no - or at least not yet. The risks are just too great. Open access in the Alternative Law Journal. doi.org/10.1177/1037...

"Queensland’s human rights commissioner, Scott McDougall, said he was “bewildered” by the announcement and the attorney general’s concerns had never been raised with him." #auslaw #qldpol www.theguardian.com/law/2025/mar...

Having been involved in consultation around these reforms - for literally years - I can attest that a lack of consultation is not the problem here. #auspol www.theguardian.com/law/2025/mar...

Early scholars job! The Amsterdam Center for International Law is hiring two postdocs and a PhD researcher for our European Research Council Starting Grant project on the effectiveness of regional human rights regimes: acil.uva.nl/content/news...

Over the next 2 days the Court of Appeal hears the appeal in Sullivan v Isle of Wight, looking at whether job applicants should be subject to whistleblowing protection, relying on the 'some other status' characteristic under Art 14 ECHR (with Art 10). #ukemplaw

A housing complex for Aboriginal Elders and their carers in Western Australia has received the go-ahead. Indigenous community housing provider Noongar Mia Mia partnered with precast building technology firm NXT TEC on the project near Midland.

Meanwhile, Australian government bureaucrats who’ve actually tried Copilot think it’s pretty useless evaluation.treasury.gov.au/sites/evalua...