Australian businesses will be banned from contacting employees outside of work hours and face fines if this gets “completely out of hand” under legislation to be debated in Parliament this week.

A right to disconnect prevents employees from facing repercussions for not answering phone calls, emails or other forms of communication outside of their scheduled work hours.

Such a right is in place in countries including France, Italy and Ireland, and has been mooted in Australia since it was recommended by a Senate committee early last year.

It is now expected to be included in the federal government’s wider industrial relations reform package, to be introduced to Parliament this week, the first sitting week of the year.

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke has been negotiating with Senate crossbenchers for support for the legislation, with discussions with the Greens leading to the inclusion of the right to disconnect.

Draft amendments for the right to disconnect were circulated to crossbenchers this week but are yet to be made public.

Speaking this week, Burke said such a scheme would involve fines for employers who ignore a Fair Work Commission-issued stop order for contacting employees outside of work hours.

“There are some workplaces where effectively people are working a whole lot of hours unpaid, because they’re expected to be permanently on call,” Burke told Sky News.

“If it has got completely out of hand of a worker being expected to do unpaid work, they’re able to go to the Commission [to] get a stop order.

“If the stop order was breached only then would there be a situation of fines.

“It is pretty light touch, but it also establishes a principle that shouldn’t be a controversial principle, which is, in Australia, you’re meant to be paid when you’re working.”

The Minister said that such a right would not prevent bosses from ringing a worker to ask then to cover a shift or emailing workers out of hours, for example, but is about protecting workers from being “constantly on call without being paid for it”.

“I do think there’s a real problem for some workers,” he said.

“I’m interested in trying to fix it for them. We’re also very much aware there are reasonable grounds for an employer to want to contact their workers outside of hours.

“We have to make sure that’s protected as well.”

The Business Council chief executive Bran Black has pushed for the details of the bill to be released publicly and for the government to consult with industry on the planned changes.

“We are disappointed to see the government try to introduce the ‘right to disconnect’ amendment at the 11th hour with no consultation and no detail on what it will entail, and we fear it will be rammed through the Parliament next week,” Black said.

“This could be devastating for businesses across Australia and cause chaos for Western Australian businesses, particularly if employees could only have communication with east coast colleagues in the narrow window between east coast business hours and those in the west.”

The right to disconnect was a key recommendation from the Senate Select Committee on Work and Care after it heard concerns about a “gradual erosion” of boundaries between work and non-work hours.

“Emerging technologies should not tether workers to jobs outside paid working hours without formal agreement and recompense, and they are particularly problematic for working carers,” the committee’s report said.

According to an Australia Institute survey in 2022, 85 per cent of Australian workers support a right to disconnect, while just 8 per cent oppose it.

The Greens introduced a private members ‘right to disconnect’ bill to Parliament in March last year.