On 7 September 2026 the Australian Government released an exposure draft of the ‘Competition and Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Banning Unfair Non-Competes) Bill 2026’.   Subject to any changes made following consultation, the government is proposing to not only ban non-compete clauses for the majority of employees (namely those earning under the applicable high- income threshold, currently $190,100) but also to ban cascading clauses in restraints and non-solicitation clauses in relation to co-workers.  While the former was announced in 2025, the latter two came as a surprise.  If the draft bill becomes an actual bill and is then passed into law, the at times tortuous area of restraints of trade will become focused only on those who it always should have been focused, namely the most senior employees who are the highest paid and with the greatest access to confidential information. ‘Tortuous’ because restraints of trade are notorious for being misunderstood and therefore misused by employers.  While a restraint of trade is an entirely legitimate means by which an employer can protect its confidential information, client connections and intellectual property when applied to an employee who actually has access to such information, all too often employers have insisted on a ‘one size fits all’ approach to such clauses and resisted customising them to a particular employee.  Why have they done so?  In many cases it has been an attempt to fend of competition (despite anti-competitive practices being prohibited under the law) rather than an attempt to protect confidential information.  Employees are free agents and ought to be free to move to another employer or establish their own business provided that they do not use the confidential information, client connections and intellectual property of a former employer.  The proposed end of cascading clauses (in which, for example, a Restraint Period may range from 12 months, to nine months, to six months and then three months and a Restraint Area may range from the whole of Australia, to a state or territory and then to a metropolitan area) will mean that employers who want to make use of restraints of trade will need to invest time and effort in ensuring that the particular restraint fits the particular employee and their employment.  Cascading clauses have created a lot of confusion and uncertainty and it can only be a good thing for them to be consigned to history.  While there is a concern among some employers that the banning of non-compete clauses for most employees will be misinterpreted by employees to amount to a ‘free pass’ to make use of confidential information, employees of corporations will still have particular duties under both the common law and the Corporations Act 2001 to not make use of such information and be at risk of legal action by the employer/former employer if they breach such duties.