Bank ordered to let a mother keep working from home

Karlene Chandler has worked for Westpac since 2002, part-time in its mortgage operations team. For years she had worked mostly from home. Then Westpac’s hybrid policy required her to attend a corporate office two days a week, about two hours’ travel from her children’s school. She does the drop-offs and pick-ups for her two six-year-olds.

On 17 January 2025 she made a formal flexible-work request under s 65 of the Fair Work Act to work from home. Westpac missed the 21-day deadline to reply, refused without reasons, and when pressed, a senior manager emailed that “working from home is no substitution for childcare”. She offered to work two days a week at the local Bowral branch instead. Westpac said no.

This is not a discrimination claim. It is the flexible-work right in the National Employment Standards, and since 2023 the Fair Work Commission can arbitrate a refusal. Deputy President Roberts found Westpac had not followed the required steps. It refused before discussing the request, did not genuinely try to reach agreement, and did not consider the consequences for her.

Nor did it have reasonable business grounds. Team huddles and training already ran online, her work “can be performed completely remotely”, and she and her team had performed “at a very high level”. Westpac argued that her home and school were her own choices and that her partner could help more. The Commission accepted the first point in part but found her partner’s work hours made that unrealistic, and that refusing would be “seriously prejudicial” to her family.

Westpac’s argument that its enterprise agreement stopped such an order was rejected. The Commission ordered Westpac to grant her request.