Land tax – a win for property developers
In a win for property developers, on 10 February 2017 the NSW Court of Appeal upheld a previous decision of the Supreme Court allowing a property developer the benefit of the primary production exemption from land tax (Chief Commissioner of State Revenue v Metricon Qld Pty Ltd).
Metricon had acquired a substantial land holding for approximately $60 million, which had been rezoned ‘Urban Expansion’ allowing for residential development. During the relevant period, Metricon sought development approval and paid approximately $2.2 million in consultant’s fees in preparing plans and reports in support of the development. Metricon also during this period agisted the land for cattle grazing for a rental of approximately $30,000.00 per annum. Read the rest of this entry »
Hospital applies for guardianship orders
In the recent case of NEJ [2017] NSWCATGD 1, the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal has allowed an Area Health Authority standing to apply to it for guardianship orders concerning a patient in hospital. The patient had complex health issues and had been in hospital for some time. An Occupational therapist assessment found that it was unsafe to discharge her home. 
The purpose of the hospital’s application was to determine whether a guardian should be appointed to assist in the process of planning for her discharge from hospital. The patient did not want to move into aged care and was resisting plans for her future.
Spending Mum’s money
A recent case in the Supreme Court (Lindsay v Arnison [2017] NSWSC 41) highlights a need for family members to take seriously the requirement to keep proper financial records when helping aged parents pay bills and operate their accounts.
Redundancy and acceptable alternate employment
I have previously written about ‘acceptable alternate employment’ as an element of the law of redundancy. In short, it is generally true that if an employer no longer requires a particular job to be done and terminates a worker, redundancy payments must be made. An exception is where the employer obtains other acceptable employment for the worker – in which case it can apply to Fair Work Commission to reduce the redundancy payment that might otherwise have to be made. 
The Fair Work Commission recently considered – and refused – such an application. The case shows that merely obtaining an alternate job for a worker is not enough, of itself, for an employer to be relieved of making redundancy payments. The short facts were that the applicant company lost some hotel cleaning contracts to a competitor. The applicant made arrangements for nearly 60 workers to be employed by the competitor. It then applied to the FWC to be relieved of making any redundancy payments.
Read the rest of this entry »
Employees’ right to require annual leave
From 29 July 2017 workers covered by a modern award will have a new right to require an employer to allow them to take annual leave. The right will apply only where the employee has accrued substantial untaken annual leave.
The process is that the employee gives a notice which, if valid, must be approved by the employer. It is expected that a notice would only be given if agreement cannot be reached on dates. Read the rest of this entry »
Casuals and redundancy pay
The Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission recently dealt with a dispute about redundancy pay. Put shortly, a number of permanent workers had been made redundant. Their employment was governed by an Enterprise Agreement (EA). Prior to becoming permanent employees, the workers had been engaged as casual workers on a systematic basis. The question to be determined was whether the (lengthy) period of service as casual workers counted towards the period of notice they should have been given, and the amount of severance or redundancy pay to which they were entitled. Read the rest of this entry »
Over-selling a job
The Federal Court has ruled a company must pay damages to a worker, who left a job due to unjustified representations about the future performance of the company. Relevantly, the job offer included a base salary plus a profit share. The representations were to the effect that the company was trading profitably and would trade profitably in the future. In fact, the company’s financial performance had dipped prior to the interview and deteriorated further. The worker was retrenched. She brought a claim for damages on the basis that she left secure employment when she would not otherwise have done so, because of the representations. Read the rest of this entry »
Superannuation death benefits
If a member of a superannuation fund dies (the deceased) there are a number of elements that determine how their superannuation death benefit will be paid. These include the terms of the fund’s trust deed, applicable trust laws, the Superannuation Industry Supervision Act 1993 and Regulations (SIS) and the Income Tax Assessment Act.
SIS Regulation 6.22 provides that the trustee can pay a death benefit to any dependent of the deceased or to their Legal Personal Representative (LPR).