About the event

To mark 21 years of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law, Melbourne Law School hosted a public seminar in which leading scholars and practitioners considered how labour law research and teaching has and can inform legal practice, implementation and reform. This event celebrates the Centre’s significant and ongoing contribution to labour law research and teaching since its establishment in 1994. It also recognises the Centre’s ongoing role in the important task of facilitating engagement between scholars, students, policymakers, the legal profession, industrial relations practitioners and other individuals and organisations working in the field. Following a keynote address by Professor Anthony Forsyth, a panel of leading academics, practitioners and regulators discussed the interfaces between labour law teaching, research and practice. The panel was chaired by the Hon. Professor Geoffrey Giudice AO, Professorial Fellow and former President of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission.

The Panel

Anthony Forsyth is a Professor of Law in the Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT University. He is also a Consultant with the Corrs Chambers Westgarth Employment Workplace & Safety Group. In October 2015, Professor Forsyth was appointed by the Victorian State Government as Chair of an independent Inquiry into the Labour Hire Industry and Insecure Work.

Natalie James is the Fair Work Ombudsman. Prior to this, she was the State Manager of the Victorian State Office of the then Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR). Natalie has also worked for 10 years in government in workplace relations, including in senior roles at the Fair Work Ombudsman and as Chief Counsel for workplace relations in DEEWR.

Josh Bornstein is Principal of Maurice Blackburn, Head of the firm’s National Employment Law Department and a member of the Maurice Blackburn Board. He has over 20 years’ experience as an employment lawyer, sits on a number of boards and advocacy groups, and is a widely-published legal commentator.

Sarah Rey is the managing partner of Justitia, an established workplace relations law firm in Melbourne that works with clients regionally and nationally. Sarah has held various governance roles, most recently establishing the Australian Chapter of the US Association of Workplace Investigators.