Anna Chapman

Anna Chapman joined the Law School after a period of practice. Her research focuses on employment law, especially in relation to the National Employment Standards, General Protections, unfair dismissal law and anti-discrimination law. She is an editor of the Australian Journal of Labour Law.

Anna Chapman holds Bachelor degrees in both Commerce and Law (with Hons) from the University of Melbourne, an LLM from the University of Melbourne and a PhD from the University of Adelaide (with a Dean's Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence).

Dr Chapman is an Associate Professor in the Melbourne Law School and a JD Course Director (Students). She is a Program Director, MLM Employment and Labour Relations Law, and is one of the Editors of the Australian Journal of Labour Law. Anna is one of the Directors of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations in the Melbourne Law School.

Dr Chapman's research focuses on employment law and gender, sexuality, and race. This work has engaged particularly with minimum standards, including leave entitlements and working hours, in addition to general protections, unfair dismissal and discrimination law.

A study published in 2012 ranked Anna as no. 20 in a list of 'Most Prolific Publishers in the Go8 University Law Reviews (Excluding Home Review)', and as no. 21 in a list of 'Overall Most Prolific Publishers in Leading Australian Law Journals (Excluding Home Review)': R. Smyth, 'Who Publishes in Australia's Top Law Journals?' (2012) 35(1) University of New South Wales Law Journal 201-245 at p 239 (table 6B), at p 241 (table 7).

Beth Gaze and Anna Chapman have been awarded an ARC Discovery Grant (2011-2013) for the project, 'Reshaping Employment Discrimination Law: Towards Substantive Equality at Work?' The 2009 reshaping of Australian industrial law through the Fair Work Act unexpectedly introduced a comprehensive prohibition on discrimination in employment. This novel prohibition will operate alongside existing anti-discrimination laws. These have quite separate conceptual foundations, and their effectiveness in promoting equality at work has been limited. This project examines the effect of the new provisions, and the interaction of the overall system of employment discrimination laws in both providing legal redress for discriminatory harms at work in Australia, and in contributing to systemic change towards equality in relations at work.