Legal. The issue of privacy

STANDING UP FOR PRIVACY?

There are a couple of recent developments in workplace law that serve to remind us that privacy and the protection of our personal information is intruding more and more into our daily lives. By Walter MacCallum, a director at Aitken Lawyers in Sydney and a regular contributor.

Late last year, an employee lost an unfair dismissal claim when he’d been terminated for refusal to use the employer’s recently installed biometric scanners. The biometric scanners had been installed in the workplace – a sawmill in Queensland - to record attendance – a modern and more accurate form of the bundy clock. The employee channelled Edward Snowden in arguing that once his biometric data had been taken by his employee, he had no confidence in his data remaining secure, arguing that his data could be sold to big data storage organisations.

While the Commission found that there was no policy in place dealing with the biometric scanning, no prior disclosure and consent, the employee’s refusal was unreasonable.

He has been granted leave to appeal, the Full Bench stating that the case raised, ‘important, novel and emerging issues’.

It will be interesting to see what the appeal determines.

FAMILY AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LEAVE

Through the ongoing awards review process, most modern awards now include provision for leave taken by employees to deal with family and domestic violence. Most awards define ‘family and domestic violence’ as violent, threatening or abusive behaviour by a family member of an employee that seeks to coerce or control the employee and that causes them harm or to be fearful.

Under most awards, an employee is entitled to five days unpaid leave to deal with family domestic violence on the basis that it is given on a ‘use or lose it basis’ in that the employee does not accrue the entitlement with only five days within in each calendar year of employment. It is also available to part-time and casual employees.

The employee must give their employer notice that the leave is to be taken or has been taken, presumably with some information to justify the leave being granted by the employer. The test provided here is a reasonable person test and evidence in support of an application for leave may include documents issued by police, courts or family violence support networks.

Where it gets sticky from a privacy point of view is the confidentiality that must be maintained by employers. The awards say that information provided by an employee must be treated confidentially ‘as far as it is reasonably practicable to do so’.

Does this mean then an HR manager is able to disclose the reasons behind the leave taken to other members of the business? If such information is handled poorly or without sensitivity then, arguably an action lies against the employer for breach of privacy.

The take home here is that employers need to be very careful about managing the information disclosed by employees for family and domestic violence leave.

IMPORT POLICIES TO CONSIDER OUR EXPORTS

Alec Wagstaff is Chief Executive Officer of Spirits & Cocktails Australia

Australian drinkers are accustomed to having the world on their shelves when they shop for their favourite tipple. The spirits aisles are like a geography lesson as you move from the well-known regions of Scotland, France, Canada and the USA to more exotic locales such as the Caribbean, South and Central America. Spirits have been a major globally traded good for many years and Australia’s free trade approach has given consumers easy access to the world’s best. The recent trade wars have drawn in producers as they face retaliatory tariffs and restrictions and the disruption caused by Brexit is sure to cause more concern. As a major exporter of wine and with the potential to become a significant spirit exporter, Australian policy makers need to make sure they don’t enact any measures that might jeopardise market access. Australian consumers benefit from free and open trade. Australia, along with other wine exporters, is challenging some of the Canadian government’s approach that discriminates against imported wines, and has expressed concern about some alcohol labelling measures being considered in Asia. Australian products can stand on their merits in the world market and our performance to date has shown that. It would be a great pity if that potential was disrupted by any tax discrimination against imported products that would inevitably lead to retaliatory action from foreign governments. In the end, the short-term sugar hit will leave a bitter taste.

FREE ONLINE WINE EDUCATION LAUNCHED BY WINE AUSTRALIA

Andreas Clark is Chief Executive of Wine Australia

At the Australia Trade Tasting (ATT) in London in January, I launched Wine Australia’s new free online education program – Australian Wine Discovered. Australian Wine Discovered is a bold, exciting and globallyaccessible Australian wine education resource designed to educate the world about our fine Australian wine and build upon the strong international demand for our great category. For the drinks trade, Australian Wine Discovered allows you to deepen your knowledge about the regions, styles and history of Australian wine at a time of your choosing; giving you the knowledge and tools to advocate for Australian wine in your business. For many people, learning about wine can be daunting; we wanted to create a globally accessible resource, using videos and imagery to breakdown complex information into something people can easily and quickly understand. Now our winemaking history and stories can be enjoyed by more people around the world. And the feedback from ATT was great. The UK trade and media took time out from the 1000 wines and 240 wineries exhibiting to test drive the education modules, information guides, videos, maps, tasting tools and more and gave a strong thumbs up to the content, accessibility and useability. Australian Wine Discovered is supported by the Australian Government’s $50 million Export and Regional Wine Support Package, which is driving bigger and bolder engagement to raise the profile of Australian wine, capture market opportunities and drive export and tourism growth.

TO THE BEER CONSUMER, INDEPENDENCE MATTERS

Alexis Roitman is the Chief Executive Officer of the Independent Brewers Association

Each year, the GABS Hottest 100 generates significant debate about which beers should and should not be on the list. Undeniably however, the Hottest 100 gives us a glimpse into what’s popular with punters. The Hottest 100 tells us a number of things. Firstly, that independence matters. For the first time in a decade, all of the top 20 hottest beers were served up by independent brewers. Secondly, the results this year demonstrated that consumers like to drink local and support the brewers in their area. Darwin’s One Mile Brewery, Armidale’s Welder’s Dog and Hemingway’s Brewery in Port Douglas all rallied support from their local fans to debut into the countdown. Finally, it shows that Australians love the fantastic new releases that independent brewers keep serving up each year as much as the classics. The strong sales growth of independent beer reflects the Hottest 100 results. According to IRI Australia, the ‘exploration craft’ category – produced mostly by independent brewers – experienced 31 per cent growth last year and continues to flourish. By comparison, the ‘gateway craft’ category grew by just four per cent. Put another way, Australian independent brewers delivered 73 per cent of dollar growth from just 33 per cent of sales. Independent brewers are driving almost all the growth in the beer category, creating real value and delighting Australians with their diverse offerings. From crisp lagers to fruity sours, in 2019 there’s an independent beer out there for everyone.

AUSTRALIA’S CIDER CONFERENCE GOES TO NEXT LEVEL

Sam Reid is the President of Cider Australia and co-owner of Wille Smith’s

I hope your summer was a good one with plenty of cider purchased and consumed! At Cider Australia we’re always evolving and as such have looked at best practice both here, in Australia, and around the globe, so we have been talking to the Batlow Cider Fest organisers to take on the Annual Australian Cider Conference. From humble beginnings, and with an eye to developing the region, the folks in Batlow have created what has now effectively become Australia’s Cider Conference. With the growth in number of craft cider producers around Australia, and the ever increasing need for further education and development, the time is right for the conference to become industry led. This will mean the conference will move around Australia on an annual basis, engaging with the various cider community stakeholders across the country, in the same way that the craft beer and spirits industries do. This year I’m delighted to announce the conference will take place in Hobart from the 3rd – 5th of June and will coincide with the Fruit Growers Tasmania Conference. It will be the first time we have had growers and producers conferences happening concurrently. Our guest keynote speaker is Jane Peyton, the world’s first pommelier (sommelier but for cider). A big theme of the conference will be matching ciders with food, something I’m very excited by as we see more complex and savoury styles of cider hitting the market every year.

DON’T FORGET THE PUNTERS

Brett Heffernan is the CEO of the Brewers Association of Australia

Raising a glass. It’s part of who we are. Whether celebrating life’s milestones or just the end of the working week, a beer with family and friends is as Oz as beach cricket, zinc cream and a BBQ snag sanga. But when it comes to the amber fluid, Aussies get a pretty raw deal. Anyone who has knocked back a frothy while overseas knows the bittersweet reality that we pay through the nose at home. Why? The taxman gets his paw into your pocket three times before you get to quench your thirst. For example, a carton of Corona will cost you $54.99. In the US, it’s $32.13. A sixpack of Coopers Pale Ale will set you back $18.99. In the US, it’s just $11.99. While a typical carton of full-strength beer in Australia will set you back $47.99, the Australian Government collects a disproportionate $20.85 – or 43 per cent of the price – in taxes. We pay double the excise of the US and almost twice what the Kiwis cough up, let alone the eight times more tax than Belgium, Poland, Chile and Argentina. The single most expensive ingredient in Australian beer is Australian Government tax. All up, Canberra netted $4.2 billion in excise and GST last year from beet drinkers alone. While cost of living pressures, such as housing affordability and power prices, require complex legislation and endless political argy-bargy before punters will ever see real relief, beer tax cuts could be delivered quickly.

LEARN TO WALK BY FALLING OVER

Simone Allan is founder and director of Mondo recruitment agency

Have you experienced a resignation out of the blue and wondered why? One quarter of employees view their jobs as the number one stressor in their life. Workplace stress is the epidemic of the 21st century.* Why are people saying they are stressed and how do we build resilience in the workplace? Information flows at an average of 11 million bits of information per second and yet our brains can only process 40 bits of information per second.** This combined with low resilient employees, raised by helicopter parents now called the ‘cotton wool generation’ means that when the going gets tough - the employees give up and run. Judith Locke has written a book called The Bonsai Child - if we smother our children and kill them with kindness, they will shrink. Unlike a tree that grows on the edge of a windy cliff - it grows strong and large roots. I have been involved in more than 2700 job appointments in Australian business in the last 25 years and have noticed executives are choosing positions that offer positive workplace environments over other benefits such as pay or title. My research, and a survey to my close community, led to these findings and a helpful acronym: STRONG. Social support. Thinking positive. Regular breaks. Open to failure. Never give up. Grouping work activity into chunks - multi tasking can lead to not nailing one task well and studies show can elevate negativity. Aim to build a STRONG place to work because as Richard Branson once said - ‘you learn by doing and by falling over.’

*Harvard Business review article survey June 27 2016 **Shawn Achor Co Founder of the Institute for Applied Positive Research.