Victoria has hit pause on its proposed work-from-home laws, just weeks after the premier who championed them resigned in the face of a leadership challenge.

Now, just months from a state election, new Victorian Premier Ben Carroll has put the brakes on one of Jacinta Allan’s signature policies, delaying the commencement of the state’s proposed work-from-home reforms until 1 July 2027, rather than the previously planned 1 September 2026 start date.

The proposed laws would give Victorian employees whose jobs can reasonably be performed remotely a legal right to work from home for up to two days a week.

Carroll says the extra time will allow for further consultation with the business community following significant opposition to the legislation.

It also begs the question of why those concerns weren’t properly addressed before the legislation was pushed through in the first place.

The policy was championed by Allan, who resigned as premier last month in the face of a leadership challenge after losing the support of her own party room. Now, just weeks later, her successor is delaying one of her signature policies to conduct more consultation.

For something pitched as a popular, family-friendly new right for Victorian workers, it’s increasingly looking like a vote grab gone very wrong.

And I don’t even want to raise the spectre of the Commonwealth Games that just finished in Scotland, instead of here.

But while the political timetable has changed, the rather more practical question of who is responsible for making sure employees can work safely and effectively from home hasn’t disappeared.

The delay does not necessarily give employers a free pass on the home office.

And Logitech ANZ Managing Director Damian Lepore argues businesses would be making a mistake if they treated it as a reprieve.

“Hybrid working arrangements are now the expectation, not the exception, for Australian white-collar employees – they are not a COVID-era hangover,” Lepore said.

“The changing of the timetable should not be viewed by business as a reprieve, but rather a planning window to figure out what productive hybrid work actually looks like in their organisation.”

Your home can still be a workplace

There is, of course, an obvious commercial interest here.

Logitech sells keyboards, mice, webcams, headsets and other equipment that feature prominently in both corporate and home offices. My desk plays host to more than a few from Logitech.

But Lepore also makes a more interesting claim: that an employee’s home workplace setup has effectively become an employer responsibility, regardless of what happens with Victoria’s proposed WFH legislation.

There is some substance behind that argument.

WorkSafe Victoria says employers have a duty under the Occupational Health and Safety Act 2004 to provide employees with a working environment that is safe and without risks to health, so far as is reasonably practicable.

Crucially, WorkSafe says that obligation includes identifying hazards and controlling health and safety risks when an employee works somewhere other than their usual workplace – including their home.

That doesn’t necessarily mean your employer is obliged to buy you the latest mechanical keyboard, 49-inch ultrawide monitor and an ergonomic throne.

It does mean the physical realities of working from home aren’t automatically somebody else’s problem simply because the desk happens to be in an employee’s spare room.

Employers are also expected to consult workers about health and safety risks associated with working from home and the measures used to control them.

So who buys the gear?

This is where the WFH conversation becomes considerably more complicated than simply deciding how many days employees should spend in an office.

A laptop may technically be everything an employee needs to perform their job, but eight hours hunched over a 14-inch screen at the kitchen table isn’t necessarily a sensible long-term workstation.

For businesses embracing permanent hybrid arrangements, that raises questions around monitors, keyboards and mice, headsets, webcams, docking stations and – perhaps most importantly – desks, chairs and ergonomics.

It also raises a less glamorous IT question: should employees simply use whatever equipment they already own, or should employers standardise what gets used outside the office?

Lepore argues businesses should use Victoria’s extra time to work those details out.

“A lack of access to quality workplace peripherals isn’t a flexibility issue, but a productivity and well-being problem,” he said.

“For companies looking to maintain business continuity, this is undoubtedly a concern that needs to be addressed before the new deadline.”

He’s hardly a disinterested observer when it comes to selling workplace peripherals, but the broader point is worth considering.

Victoria may have postponed the political fight over a legislated right to work from home.

The practical reality of managing people who already do it hasn’t been postponed at all.