Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 5:25:49 to 5:31:44
Review of jurisdictional changes for general protections cases and the implementation of new provisions to manage vexatious litigants.
Topics: Workplace relations, Law reform
Speakers: Murray Furlong, Senator Jane Hume, Zoe Bright, Chloé Eaton
Was um was it consulted on the Greens Intractable Bargaining Amendment before that was agreed on the 29th of June?
Sorry, Senator, could you just clarify?
Well, the issues that you had raised in that document. Did you uh raise those um sorry, forgive me? There was a Green's intractable bargaining amendment that uh no, I'm gonna find that was on a different bill, forgive me. I'm going to find out exactly when that bill was and whether that was consulted on. Forgive me. I do want to ask you though, on the 7th of July, or since the 7th of July, um exactly how many general protections and unlawful termination matters have gone to conciliation now without the um jurisdictional hearing. So that this that that bill enabled.
We might be able to provide some specific detail and Ms. Eden will be able to assist there. But in terms of that element of the reform, jurisdictional objections relating to general general protection submissive cases, um, that the commission now does no longer need to deal with the jurisdictional issue to determine whether or not the person dismissed. We have found that it's actually decreased that that issue has decreased the number um from 15 to 20 to 20 per cent of cases to five per cent of cases since the amendment, so that's to be dealt with. And if you extrapolate that out over a year, uh we received so for 2425, we will see um 9,024 general protection involvement dismissal applications, so it is a very significant number. Over the course of a year, it will be somewhere between one and or two thousand cases, which is why I was referring to the the relief in the regulatory burden associated with uh with this jurisdiction. Is it is there anything else you like to add?
I think um since the 7th of July, there's approximately 120 matters that have would have gone directly to staff rather than going to a member to determine the just jurisdictional issue. 120 before being able to dispute resolution.
Okay, is that um how many have been decided on the papers? Can you do that?
Decide them on the papers rather than uh no, so for a general protections matter, the Commission sorry, on a general protections matter, the Commission's role is to conduct dispute resolution, which we do in a variety of ways, but it's usually through a conversation. Sorry, people can't hear me. Um sometimes we do do dispute resolution via email.
Yeah.
Um but that's a very small proportion most of our cases would be over the phone.
Okay, well, how many since that period of time have since the 7th of July? How many applications for orders under Section 587A have been made and how many have been granted?
I don't have that information before me. I'm sorry. I'll take that on notice.
Thank you.
Ms. Brought might be able to assist.
That's all right. I was going to say Senator Zoe Bright, Executive Director of the Legal Performance and Engagement Branch. Is that the vexatious um litigants on the we haven't made any orders under the Vexatious Lit against provisions yet? Um we sort of we anticipate that that will be an incredibly useful position uh provision when the the correct circumstance arises, um, but it it hasn't yet.
Um there's been no vexatious litigants since the 7th of July.
So my recollection of the provisions of the Act, Senator, is that um the Commission has to dismiss an application and then it has to be brought before a full bench to make um a vexatious litigate declaration. Um and that hasn't happened since. 7th of July. We do have vexatious litigants from time to time, and they do take a a lot of the commission's resources. So that provision will be incredibly useful when that happens.
Okay, how many certificates have been issued by staff under delegation under what classification? Is that the number that you gave me before? How many have gone to my staff rather than commission?
Sorry, sir.
That's right.
Um we that function hasn't been delegated from commission members. Uh to a staff member. Right. We're going and one of the reasons is that we're going undertaking significant organizational change at the moment to deal with uh the seventy to eighty percent increase in our workload over the last five three to five years. And some of the changes, some of the deeper changes we're making are in relation to the general protections involved in dismissal jurisdiction. And we are rolling out digital in the last sort of couple of weeks we've been rolling out digital technology to uh improve the efficiency in the operations of this jurisdiction. So we haven't made a decision until we resolve and we've consolidated all of those changes. Once that's settled, we will consider well, the president will consider whether or not that certificate the the the power should be um issued or the delegation should be issued to a staff member. Okay, but it is it is certainly something that uh we will um take advantage of, I imagine, at the appropriate time.
Okay. Um let me give you a broader question then. The issue that this bill was trying to address was the backlog that was at the Fairwork Commission. How's the backlog?