The High Court of Australia recently answered this question with
a resounding no in the
landmark case of Comcare v Michaela Banerjii which
centred around freedom of political communication and the extent to
which an employer can control what their employees say and do
outside of work, even when their identity is hidden.
Ms Banerji, an employee of the Department of Immigration and
Citizenship, was found to have breached the Australian Public
Service (APS) Code of Conduct by making over 9,000 anonymous tweets
critiquing government policies and the actions of government
officials. The APS consequently terminated Ms Banerji's
employment following an internal investigation which exposed her as
the author of the anonymous tweets and the curator of the twitter
profile responsible for the damaging content. Ms Banerji attempted
to prevent the Department from following through with her
termination by appealing to the Federal Circuit Court for
injunctive relief. The
