Free speech just received a chilling blow in Australia | Hacker News Reader

Free speech just received a chilling blow in Australia

abc.net.au

47 pointsmindfulhack7 comments

Here is the APS Code of Conduct: https://www.apsc.gov.au/code-conduct

> The court heard Ms Banerji tweeted approximately 9,000 times in 2012, from a private device and mostly outside of work hours.

It's the "mostly outside" part that sets off alarm bells for me. Admittedly I'm not in AUS, but it seems like that would be reason enough for termination.

""The implication is that for any employee-employer relationship, if the employee is critical of the employer's position on some politically relevant social issue, they can be sacked.""

Being in America where you can get fired for anything or laid off with zero notice, this doesn't seem too unusual.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Australia has a lot more protections in place around the employee<->employer relationship. A lot more.

For instance, you can't legally be sacked without notice[0], or pay[1]. (Unless you're not an employee. Contractors can have other stipulations in place.)

However, all casuals, employees and contractors alike are protected by the National Employment Standards. [2] Which includes, in the Fair Work Information Statement, a right to freedom from association from your employer. That part of the statement is what this ruling attacks.

[0] https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ending-employment/notice-and-fin...

[1] https://www.fairwork.gov.au/ending-employment/notice-and-fin...

[2] https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employee-entitlements/national-e...

> Being in America where you can get fired for anything

This is false. There are many circumstances when firing is illegal.

Being a state level issue, it does tend to be all over the place. I think in California though political opinion is a protected class in the context of employment.

Employment law is a mixed state and federal issue. There are some very significant federal employment protections, such as the Civil Rights Act.

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