A trailblazing shift in Australian public sector working arrangements is set to kick off in the New Year, after Murrumbidgee Council in regional New South Wales voted to roll out the country’s first ever four-day work week trial for local government employees.
The 15-month experimental program, scheduled to launch in January, compresses the standard 38-hour working week into four days across all council operations spanning Darlington Point, Coleambally and Jerilderie. This includes frontline office services, depot work crews, and public library facilities. While most non-essential services will close entirely on Fridays to accommodate the new schedule, critical community-facing services including the local childcare centre and caravan park will remain open, and on-call essential staff will continue their existing rosters.
Proponents of the scheme argue the compressed work week will deliver three key benefits for the regional council: it will make the authority more competitive in attracting skilled workers to a tight regional labor market, it will boost overall staff productivity, and it will give every employee 52 three-day weekends each year, significantly improving work-life balance.
The plan follows months of structured consultation with both council staff and the local community, which found that 75% of employees backed the transition to a four-day model. Council General Manager John Scarce told the council’s July 28 ordinary meeting that public feedback showed overwhelming acceptance of the change.
“If there was widespread community pushback, residents had every opportunity to voice their concerns,” Scarce said. “The fact that so few have come forward with objections makes it clear the majority of people have no issue with this trial at all.”
To ensure transparency and evidence-based decision making, the trial will follow a structured evaluation timeline. An initial review of performance data will be conducted after 12 months, with the remaining three months of the trial period reserved for full impact assessment. The final decision on whether to make the four-day week permanent will not rest solely with management: staff will hold a binding vote on whether they want to retain the model, and elected council representatives will also cast a final vote after reviewing whether all pre-set performance and service delivery targets have been met. Over the coming six months, Scarce will finalize the formal trial agreement and the key performance indicators that will be used to measure the program’s success.
Not all local stakeholders have voiced support for the change, however. Trudi-Louise Chant, a disability service provider with Coleambally-based Riverina Connect, raised concerns about the planned Friday closure of the combined local council office and library, a facility that has already seen reduced opening hours in recent years.
Chant noted that most public conversation around the trial has focused on the benefits for council staff, rather than potential impacts on community access to services. “Most people’s take is that government workers just want more time off,” she said.
Murrumbidgee Council’s trial puts the regional authority at the center of a growing national debate over working hour reforms in Australia. The local government trial is more targeted than the sweeping national changes proposed by Australian unions, which are pushing to cut the standard full-time working week from 38 to 35 hours as part of a national transition to a four-day week with no reduction in pay for workers. Unions argue that decades of productivity growth driven by new technology have not translated to better work-life balance for workers, and that shorter weeks can improve employee health, reduce staff turnover, and actually boost overall output. The United Services Union has specifically pushed for greater flexible working arrangements, including four-day week options, for New South Wales local government workers, as households grapple with soaring transport costs and councils struggle with staffing and retention pressures.