About Eloise

Eloise provides clear, practical legal advice to State and Local Government and not-for-profit clients to navigate the complexities of the employment relationship. She assists with a broad range of workplace issues, including termination of employment, sexual harassment, anti-discrimination, general protections, unfair dismissals, workplace investigations, executive employment contracts, enterprise agreements and industrial disputes. Eloise has experience conducting litigation in a range of jurisdictions and frequently draws on her social work background when preparing witnesses for hearings.

Eloise has a genuine curiosity regarding the unique contexts faced by her clients and is known for her empathetic and nuanced approach to complex legal matters.

Experience

• Ambulance Victoria

  Supported and advised Ambulance Victoria on the management of complex employee matters involving multi-layered issues.

  These matters spanned areas such as sexual harassment; bullying; outside of work conduct; physical and mental health; drug and alcohol use; and employee and patient safety. This work involved understanding the unique working environment and policy context of emergency services.

• Victorian Minister for Emergency Services

  Represented the Victorian Minister for Emergency Services in a range of industrial disputes involving Fire Rescue Victoria and the United Firefighters' Union. This has involved both facilitating early resolution as well as running matters all the way through to completion in Fair Work Commission hearings.

  These matters involved the interpretation of enterprise agreement clauses (particularly within the broader legislative context) and the utilisation of various mechanisms within the Fair Work Act 2009 to assist with progressing bargaining in complex, multi-layered negotiations.
  

• GOTAFE

  Supported GOTAFE to plan and implement a broad restructure across several levels of management.

  This involved seeking to streamline the restructuring process while also complying with two enterprise agreements and both internal and State Government policy.

• Victorian State and Local government

  Represented a range of State and Local governments to successfully defend unfair dismissal, general protections and discrimination claims. This has involved both facilitating early resolution as well as running matters all the way through to the hearing in the Fair Work Commission.

  Advised a range of Local governments on the ramifications of major incoming changes to aged care funding. This included advice on the potential implications for each Council in terms of consultation obligations; the interaction between Federal Government, the Council executive and the Councillors; redundancy processes and enterprise agreement compliance.