An early test of the new casual-conversion rules just reset how HR should handle these notices
Australia's workplace tribunal has weighed in on the country's new casual-conversion rules, and it sided with a university teacher.
The Fair Work Commission ruled on August 12, 2026, that a casual academic at Macquarie University should be treated as a part-time employee. The Commission said the dispute turned on provisions that had not been considered in any earlier case - the "employee choice" rules that entered the Fair Work Act in August 2024.
The teacher had worked in the university's School of Computing since 2023, lecturing a core computing subject across consecutive semesters and scheduled to teach it again. In November 2025 he gave the university written notice that his role no longer met the definition of casual work. Under the new rules, a casual who believes their job has stopped being casual can ask to move to permanent employment. The university declined the notice. The teacher took the dispute to the Commission, which referred it to arbitration.
Everything turned on one phrase in the Act: whether the work carried "a firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work." That is the test that separates genuine casuals from workers who should be permanent. The Commission ran the statutory checklist - whether the university could realistically decline to offer the work, whether the work would keep being available, whether permanent staff did the same job, and...
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