Your boss sends an email at 9pm. You read it. You reply. And somewhere in the back of your mind, you wonder — do I actually have to do this?

Since August 2024, the answer for most Australian employees is: no, you don't. And since August 2025, that protection extends to employees at small businesses too.

The right to disconnect is now law in Australia. What most employees don't know is whether their employment contract reflects it — or quietly undermines it.

What Is the Right to Disconnect?

The right to disconnect is a workplace right under the Fair Work Act 2009, introduced as part of the Closing Loopholes reforms. In plain English, it gives employees the legal right to refuse to monitor, read, or respond to work-related contact outside their working hours — unless doing so would be unreasonable.

That includes calls, emails, texts, messages on Slack or Teams, and contact from third parties like clients and suppliers — not just your direct manager.

The law applies to most private sector employees under the national workplace relations system. It does not cover independent contractors or most state public sector employees.

Key dates:

• 26 August 2024 — Right to disconnect took effect for businesses with 15 or more employees
• 26 August 2025 — Extended to employees of small businesses (fewer than 15 employees)

All 155 modern awards have now been updated to include a right to disconnect term.

What “Unreasonable Refusal” Actually Means

The right isn't absolute. An employee's refusal to respond can be considered unreasonable depending on the circumstances. The Fair Work Act lists factors that must be weighed:

• The reason for the contact — Is there a genuine emergency, or is it routine?
• How disruptive the contact is — A single email is different to repeated phone calls
• The employee's role and level of seniority — Senior roles with greater responsibility are treated differently
• Whether the employee is compensated for availability — If you receive an allowance to be contactable after hours, refusal is harder to justify
• The employee's personal circumstances — Caring responsibilities, health, and family obligations are relevant

One common myth is that a contract clause allowing “reasonable additional hours” removes your right to disconnect. It doesn't. The right to disconnect exists independently of how your contract handles additional hours — your employer cannot contract it away.

What Your Contract Might Actually Say

Here's where it gets practical for employees. Most employment contracts written before August 2024 say nothing about the right to disconnect — because it didn't exist. Many contracts written after that date still don't address it properly.

What you might find instead:

“On-call” or “availability” clauses — These require you to be reachable outside business hours for operational reasons. If there's an availability allowance attached, this affects whether refusing contact is considered unreasonable. If there's no allowance, the clause is weaker than it looks.

“Reasonable additional hours” clauses — Standard in most Australian employment contracts. These do not override your right to disconnect. Your employer can ask you to work additional hours; they cannot penalise you for not responding to a 10pm email unless refusal is genuinely unreasonable given all the circumstances.

Vague flexibility clauses — Phrases like “the employee agrees to perform duties as reasonably required” are not a blank cheque for after-hours contact. But employees often treat them as one.

No mention at all — Very common in older contracts. Your right to disconnect still applies — it comes from the Fair Work Act, not from your contract. But the absence of any agreement about after-hours expectations can create ambiguity that's worth clearing up.

What Happens If an Employer Ignores It?

The right to disconnect is a protected workplace right under the Fair Work Act's general protections provisions. That means an employer cannot take adverse action against you — demote you, reduce your hours, treat you unfavourably — because you exercised it.

If a dispute arises, the process is:

• Raise it at the workplace level first — a conversation with your manager or HR
• If unresolved, either party can apply to the Fair Work Commission to deal with the dispute
• The Commission can issue orders requiring a party to stop taking certain actions

This isn't a trivial process for employers. Being found to have taken adverse action against an employee for exercising a workplace right carries significant exposure under the Fair Work Act.

What to Check in Your Employment Contract

If you want to understand how the right to disconnect applies to your specific situation, here are the clauses worth looking at:

• Hours of work clause — What are your contracted hours? Does the contract define “working hours”?
• On-call or availability clause — Are you required to be contactable outside those hours? Is there any compensation for that?
• Additional hours clause — What does it say about reasonable additional hours? Is there a compensation mechanism?
• Flexibility clause — How broadly is it worded? Does it create an open-ended availability obligation?
• Modern Award coverage — Does an award apply to your role? If so, the award's right to disconnect term also applies — and in some cases may offer additional protections.

None of this is complicated to find. It is, however, easy to miss when you're scanning a contract for salary and start date.

Your Contract and the Law Aren't Always Aligned

The right to disconnect is a good example of a broader pattern in Australian employment law: your legal rights exist independently of what your contract says. A contract cannot take away rights granted by the Fair Work Act. But a poorly worded contract can create confusion about where those rights begin and end — and most employees don't realise there's a gap until they're already in a dispute.

Check What's Actually in Your Contract

If you want a plain-English breakdown of your employment contract — including how your hours, availability, and flexibility clauses stack up against Australian law — analyse your employment contract with Contractam. Your first analysis is free.

We're not lawyers. But we can show you what's in your contract, what it means, and whether it lines up with what the law actually requires.

This article is general information only and does not constitute legal advice. For advice specific to your situation, contact the Fair Work Ombudsman or seek advice from a qualified Australian employment lawyer.

This article is general information only and does not constitute legal advice. For matters specific to your situation, seek advice from a qualified Australian employment lawyer or contact the Fair Work Ombudsman.