You have the right to, and can’t be punished for it. But you can still be punished if they just say it's unrelated to it, whether through missed opportunities, increased workload, undesirable assignments, or even termination with flimsy justifications.
It’s the age-old: “No one is pointing a gun at their head. They’re doing it because they want to.” -Manager XYZ
I can see two ways to prevent it:
1. Ban employers from doing so with potential fees, except in cases where it's a stipulation on the contract. Although this would eventually lead to employers adding it to every contract. Not a fan of this approach.
2. You make them pay you weekend-rate overtime, this would still allow your superiors to contact you, but they would think twice. I would definitely support this, although it might not apply to all circumstances.
3. I honestly don't know, there's probably better solutions from smarter people.
I don't know about Australia, but in my jurisdiction any illegal contractual clauses are unenforceable.
If the law says "X is forbidden" and the contract says "employee agrees to do X" then the employer has no legal recourse to force employee to do X.
Point 2. is the usual on-call, and it's still regulated (in my jurisdiction) by mandatory rest periods during which a person is legally mandated to not work.
It’s the age-old: “No one is pointing a gun at their head. They’re doing it because they want to.” -Manager XYZ
I can see two ways to prevent it:
1. Ban employers from doing so with potential fees, except in cases where it's a stipulation on the contract. Although this would eventually lead to employers adding it to every contract. Not a fan of this approach.
2. You make them pay you weekend-rate overtime, this would still allow your superiors to contact you, but they would think twice. I would definitely support this, although it might not apply to all circumstances.
3. I honestly don't know, there's probably better solutions from smarter people.