The Victorian Government’s push to enshrine in law the right for employees to work from home at least two days a week has sparked one of the largest public responses to an Australian state government proposal.
Premier Jacinta Allan said more than 18,400 Victorians had already participated in the consultation process which started three weeks ago.
Ms Allan said more than 1000 responses were received in the first two hours of the consultation, with 5000 responses received by the end of the first day.
She said the Engage Victoria platform averaged 8 to 9 submissions per minute.
“By these numbers, the Have Your say: Working From Home survey is one of the biggest online engagement processes ever run by a state government in Australia – and it broke Engage Victoria records for number of submissions and speed of submission.”
Ms Allan said the survey, which closed on September 28, had now been translated into Hindi, Punjabi, Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek and Italian.
She said under the proposed laws, if a person could reasonably do their job from their home, they would have the right to do so for at least two days a week, whether they worked in the public or private sector.
“The consultation won’t determine whether working from home should be a right – we already know it should be. This is about making sure the rules are appropriate.”
Ms Allan said the Government was seeking feedback on key elements of the proposed laws including the types and sizes of businesses that would be covered, the definition of remote work, and who could reasonably work from home.
