ANZ cracks down on home-working staff

November 12, 2026 — 5:00am

Big four bank boss Nuno Matos from ANZ is taking matters into his own hands when it comes to his staff working from home.

Matos isn’t waiting for the Victorian government to determine the rules after Premier Ben Carroll baulked at executing on his predecessor Jacinta Allan’s plan to mandate that employees should be allowed to work from home at least two days a week from September this year.

Buried deep on page 198 of ANZ’s door-stopper 348-page annual report, which was released on Monday, are some stats on the extent to which Matos has taken the big stick to folks that don’t come into the office. ANZ has a workforce of 39,000 people, of which 18,000 are in Australia.

In a section titled “Accountability and Consequence Framework”, it is revealed that in the financial year to September 30, ANZ dealt with 2204 employee relations cases involving alleged breaches of its code of conduct. That was up a whopping 40 per cent on cases in 2025. This comes as Matos homes in on managing non-financial risk at the bank by focusing on accountability.

Of those, 670 resulted in “a formal consequence or the employee leaving ANZ”, with 139 of those people fired from the Melbourne-headquartered bank, 405 issued with warnings and 126 leaving the $121 billion company.

“The increase in cases has been mainly driven by an increased focus on office attendance non-compliance,” the annual report, signed by chairman Paul O’Sullivan, reveals.

ANZ’s explicit hybrid working policy is that punters must attend the office at least half of their working days, with the flexibility to work the other half of their time remotely.

ANZ was contacted but declined to comment.

Weekly turns page on editor

It used to be one of the most prized jobs in Australian journalism. Now the role of editor at The Australian Women’s Weekly may no longer exist.

That’s the word in Australian media circles this week, after staff at the women’s magazine were told earlier this month that their editor, Sophie Tedmanson, was set to depart the business, according to people familiar with her exit, after just three years at the magazine.

AWW is published by the nation’s biggest magazine publisher, Are Media, which also owns supermarket favourites including Better Homes and Gardens, Marie Clare, New Idea and Elle.

Are Media, through a spokesman, confirmed Tedmanson had vacated her role as editor, but would not be drawn on whether the job would be cut altogether. Instead, the publisher said it would soon begin recruitment for the “newly created role” of editorial director of The Australian Women’s Weekly and Women’s Weekly Food.

During the publishing industry’s heyday, the top job at AWW was among the most influential in the business. It has been filled by a string of big names, including Ita Buttrose, perhaps better known for her controversial reign as chairman of the ABC, along with Helen McCabe, who went on to found Future Women and is now a non-executive director at Claire Kimball’s The Squiz, and Deborah Thomas, who spent close to a decade in the top job before moving into corporate roles at ACP Magazines.

Are Media claims that AWW has a monthly print readership of 1.3 million and a multi-platform audience of 2.8 million. Roy Morgan Research has the monthly print readership at 1.4 million in the year to June 2026 and a multi-platform audience of 1.64 million.

But the publisher clearly doesn’t like what it sees, with the Weekly now slipping to Australia’s second- most-read paid magazine after Better Homes and Gardens. How else to explain all the change going on at 54 Park Street?

It was only in June that the company confirmed it had made its marketing boss redundant as part of a round of job cuts that hit up to 30 people. That shoe dropped only a couple of months after the publisher announced that its chief executive Jane Huxley would also head for the door. Her replacement, the company announced in March, would be Are Media’s director of content, Sally Eagle. Tedmanson, who was contacted for comment, had been in the top job for three years.

Dead spit Papley re-signs with Dolphins

While key Swans forward Tom Papley awaits the results from his second drug test following an initial positive result from a roadside test last week, here’s one to make the Papley footy clan proud.

Will, little brother of the Sydney star, has just re-signed for his second year playing in the VFL with the Frankston Football Club.

“We can’t wait to see Will Papley build on his first full season at VFL level!” the Dolphins declared in an Instagram post a few days ago announcing the re-signing.

The Frankston club wrote that after some “moments of brilliance” in season 2026, “the sky’s the limit”.

In an AFL report a few years back on the siblings, it was noted that “the two are a similar height, have a similar build, look very similar and play footy in a similar way”.

“We talk, walk and run the same … I think we play the same as well,” now-23-year-old Will said at the time.

The Papleys hail from Bunyip in the Gippsland region. Will and 30-year-old Tom’s paternal grandfather Max Papley played for the South Melbourne Football Club (now the Sydney Swans).

Will played 10 games for Frankston this year, including in the first round of finals against the Swans’ VFL team in a match won Sydney won by 68 points.

Whether his big brother is able to begin season 2027 come round one is yet to be seen, as he awaits his second drug test result. Previous AFL players found with illicit substances (such as Jack Ginnivan, Bailey Smith and Lachie Cowan) have typically faced standard two-match bans under league policy.

Before that though, Tom is scheduled to be in court on November 26 for driving while his licence was suspended, around about the same time as the Swans’ pre-season training is expected to start.

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