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 whether there was a regular pattern. Most factors pointed toward permanent status. The teacher lectured a core subject, the work recurred, and permanent staff taught the same material.
The Commission found he was not a casual when he gave notice. His arrangement, it said, looked "more akin to recurring fixed-term periods of part-time employment, rather than genuine casual employment."
A second issue has wider reach for employers. The university argued its enterprise agreement did not allow a part-time hire for teaching-only duties, so no order could be made. The Commission disagreed. Where an agreement term blocks an employee from reaching their employee-choice rights under the National Employment Standards, it found, that term has no effect to the extent of the conflict. An enterprise agreement cannot cancel out an NES entitlement.
The Commission ordered the university to treat the teacher as a 0.1 full-time-equivalent part-time employee - a guarantee of 3.5 hours a week, or 182 hours averaged over the year - taking effect 28 days after the decision. It noted the university might even reduce costs, because casual teaching rates sit above the part-time rates in its agreement.
For HR teams, the decision maps out how these cases are likely to run. On the Commission's reading, its task is mainly to decide whether the worker meets the casual definition in section 15A of the Act. If they do, there is no conversion. If they do not, the employer generally cannot keep treating them as casual. An employer can still refuse a notice on fair and reasonable operational grounds, but those grounds have to be substantial - a real reorganisation of how work is done, a significant operational impact, or a genuine problem complying with a workplace agreement.
There is also a timing lesson. The Commission said it was required to disregard everything that happened after the notice was lodged, including a change to the teacher's teaching load the following semester. The assessment is fixed at the date of the notice. Adjusting someone's hours after they file will not shift the outcome.
