Victoria’s first-of-its-kind work from home laws will be watered down further in favour of businesses and officially delayed under new Premier Ben Carroll.The legal right to work from home two days a week will be pushed back until July 1 in 2027, and small businesses will get a six-month delay until January 1, 2028.Amendments to the bill are to be introduced to the state parliament on Thursday.One of Mr Carroll’s first moves after toppling his predecessor was to pause upper house debate on the bill.The amendments say businesses will be able to assess whether working from home creates a “material adverse impact”, compared to the previous wording of a “significant adverse impact”.Businesses would also be given 28 days to respond to a worker’s request to work from home two days per week, up from the previous 21 days.Proposed amendments also tighten what essential hardware, software and secure IT access costs the business has to pay for.An independent review of the law, once it’s passed, has been brought in from three years to 18 months.Mr Carroll said on Thursday the amendments “will work for our economy”.“Work from home works, and in Victoria, it will be your right.“These laws must work for business too – because the reality is, if it’s not practical, the laws won’t last.”Surveys from HR platform Remote show Victorian businesses will consider offshoring jobs, hiring interstate and turn to contractors more often when the laws are passed.The survey found 43 per cent of Victorian businesses will consider moving jobs overseas, 36 per cent will look to shift hiring interstate, and nearly half will use contractors more often.“While the legislation is yet to be passed, Victorian employers are signalling that the new laws, which were designed to give workers greater certainty around flexible work, could inadvertently deliver greater job insecurity and reduced opportunity for Victorian workers,” Remote Asia Pacific executive Nick Martin said.The executive director of the conservative industrial relations think tank HR Nicholls wrote to Mr Carroll this week, calling for the legal advice and economic modelling used as the basis of the legislation.“You describe this Bill as a world first, however unlike any other world first, the Government that proposes to pass it has provided no legal advice on its constitutionality and no economic modelling of its impact,” the letter said.“Nothing to show the law is valid, nothing to show what it will cost and, further, your proposed amendments to ‘fix’ the Bill only exist through an Instagram post.”Read related topics:Melbourne