Source: Australian Mines and Metals Association – AMMA
The Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association (AREEA) has called for immediate reform to Australia’s unfair dismissal and general protections claims system, warning the Fair Work Commission is being swamped by speculative, low-merit and increasingly AI-generated applications.
AREEA Chief Executive Steve Knott AM said a recent decision by Fair Work Commission Deputy President Colman laid bare the problem confronting employers and the Commission alike.
In dismissing what was the applicant’s fifth Fair Work Commission application in two years, Deputy President Colman observed:
“There is no effective disincentive for speculative claims, and so they come, in great numbers, compounding the Commission’s burgeoning caseload.”
Mr Knott said the Deputy President had accurately captured what employers have been experiencing for years.
“The system is now effectively inviting speculative claims,” Mr Knott said.
“When it costs just $89.70 to file an unfair dismissal application and nearly 40 per cent of applicants don’t even pay that because the fee is waived, there is virtually no downside to having a crack.”
“At the same time, employers are forced to spend thousands, and often tens of thousands, defending claims that should never have made it through the front door.”
Mr Knott said the rapid rise of generative AI tools including ChatGPT had made the problem materially worse.
“AI has dramatically lowered the effort required to produce lengthy applications, submissions and witness statements,” he said.
“The Fair Work Commission itself has now acknowledged an ‘unprecedented Generative Artificial Intelligence-driven increase’ in applications and litigation.
“That should ring alarm bells for Government.”
AREEA has called for the unfair dismissal and general protections lodgement fee to be increased to $500 and for the Commission to apply far stricter scrutiny before granting fee waivers based on alleged financial hardship.
“With more than 50,000 unfair dismissal and general protections claims expected this year, are we seriously meant to believe almost 20,000 applicants cannot afford an $89.70 filing fee?” Mr Knott said.
“The current settings are absurd. There is no meaningful economic disincentive against speculative litigation.”
Mr Knott said regardless of whether tonight’s Federal Budget delivered deliver additional funding to help the Fair Work Commission manage rising caseloads, simply throwing more taxpayer money at the problem was not reform.
“You cannot solve a claims explosion by hiring more bureaucrats to process weak claims faster,” he said.
“The problem is structural. Until there are real consequences for speculative applications, the volume will continue to grow.”
“Access to justice should never mean open season on employers.”
“The Fair Work system urgently needs stronger filtering mechanisms, stronger cost consequences and real deterrents against speculative claims before confidence in the system deteriorates further.”
Read Deputy President Colman’s decision in full – Anthony Davitkov v Woolworths Group Limited – [2026] FWC 1655
ENDS
Click here for a full PDF of this release including media contact details.