Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 5:31:45 to 5:45:20
Analysis of current case lodgement statistics, clearance rates, and the impact of recent reforms on the Commission's backlog.
Topics: Workplace relations, Public service staffing
Speakers: Murray Furlong, Senator Marielle Smith, Senator Fatima Payman, Senator Paul Scarr, Unknown Speaker, Senator Jane Hume
I'm pleased to report that the growth in our case slide appears to have moderated, possibly to a new norm of recent times. So for the first three months of this financial year, we received thirty thousand three hundred and three lodgements. So that's the thirty September.
Sorry, can you say that again?
Thirty thousand three hundred and three. Now if you extrapolate that out over a full financial year, you arrive at somewhere between fifty-three, fifty-four thousand applications, which is commended what we received in the twenty-five, twenty-six financial yeah. But compared to twenty twenty-one, I think it was twenty twenty-one, we received around thirty-two thousand applications. So this might be the new normal. Now since the growth the president and I have been very open and transparent about the the disruption in the workload of the commission, the number of cases receiving the the the difference in the nature of the parties that come in before us, more individual rights-based cases, more people being self-represented. So we moved really quickly because we wanted to get a front of the curve and through significant changes and ambiguity. Um I'm pleased to report in terms of the workload. The clearance rate for 26-27. This is reporting to thirty September was a hundred and nine percent. And the median age of matters on hand was thirty-eight days. So it's within six weeks of lodgement at one October. And this is significantly lower than the recent peak of forty-seven days calculated in February this year.
And Senator Lee to rotate. Um Senator Payman, you have the call and then I'll come back to the opposition before returning to Senator Roberts. Senator Payne.
Um June it was reported that the Fairwork Commission adjusted the caseload of Commissioner Sophie Mirabella following her being charged by peace.
Yeah, can I ask for a short adjournment? There might be matters and opponents not aware of I'd like to discuss in private with committee members.
Uh I'm happy for the committee to suspend um in a few minutes. I'm going to pass to you for this part of the crossbenchers time and then we'll return to Senator Fehlman in a payment in your spot. So Senator Roberts.