Australia’s Productivity Commission has told a Senate inquiry there is no clear need to give all workers a legal right to request working from home, arguing that employers and staff are already reaching suitable arrangements without further regulation.
Commissioner Catherine de Fontenay said there was no strong evidence that large numbers of people who could productively work from home were being prevented from doing so.
She said more evidence was needed to show that a new law was necessary.
The Bill, introduced by Greens Senator Barbara Pocock on Nov. 5, 2025, would allow employees to request up to two days of working from home each week. Employers could refuse only if the arrangement made it impractical or impossible to carry out the core requirements of the job.
At present, only certain employees, including carers, parents of children of young children, and people aged 55 or older, have a legal right to request flexible working arrangements.
Commission Warns of Unintended Costs
In its written submission, titled “Working from home can work itself out,” the Productivity Commission said working from home had become far more common since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Before the pandemic, only about 8 percent of employees worked any of their usual hours from home. By 2025, around 36 percent of employed Australians usually worked from home for at least part of the week.
Hybrid arrangements of two or three days at home had become common among full-time workers, with most employers planning to maintain their existing policies.
“Thus, Australian employers and employees overall appear to have landed on sensible work-from-home arrangements,” the commission wrote.
Productivity Catherine de Fontenay gives evidence to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee on Right to Work from Home Bill 2025 on Nov. 4, 2026. (Screen capture from Senate livestream)
The commission also questioned whether the bill would allow employers to require office attendance to maintain workplace relationships, warning that uncertainty could discourage businesses from refusing requests for fear of legal action.
Liberal Senator Paul Scarr argued that a legislated right would not stop employers and staff from making their own arrangements.
De Fontenay said employers could struggle to prove costs that were hard to measure.
“It can be difficult to quantify lost trust between coworkers,” she said.
She argued that market forces would eventually encourage greater flexibility, with businesses requiring staff in the office five days a week potentially having to offer higher salaries to attract workers.
“And that’s a good and reasonable outcome,” she said.
Pocock Challenges Commission’s Argument
Pocock disputed that view, arguing that workers and employers did not always have equal bargaining power or access to information.
“Our labour markets are not like the market for apples,” she said, adding that there were regional differences.
She noted that the commission had not conducted its own research on the topic since 2021 and pointed to research involving clerical workers, which found that 17.8 percent of employees were not working from home but wanted to, while 6.1 percent had made a request that was refused.
De Fontenay said more evidence was needed to establish whether allowing those employees to work from home would be productive or impose significant costs on businesses.
Despite questioning the need for legislation, de Fontenay acknowledged that working from home had encouraged greater workforce participation and was “immensely helpful to families that are looking after children.”
The Senate committee is due to report on the proposed legislation by Nov. 18.
