Our President, Justice Hatcher, has issued a statement about reforms to the case management processes for general protections dismissal cases.
We received 44,075 applications in 2024-25. This is 24% above the 5-year average. The increase is substantially driven by the growing number of applications in our 2 largest case types:
- unfair dismissal applications
- general protections dismissal applications.
The rate of growth has been highest for general protections dismissal applications. There were 6,209 general protections dismissal applications made in the 2024-25 financial year. This is 27% above the 5-year average.
The rate of growth has accelerated in the first quarter (Q1) of 2025-26. We received 13,671 applications in Q1 exceeding the 3-year average by 45%. This included 2,102 general protections dismissal applications which represents a 57% increase on the 3-year average.
This continuing growth in workload is unsustainable within our current operational, performance and funding structures. As a result, it is necessary to review and reform our case management processes to accommodate the increasing workload. The statement provides more detail and sets out the 3 stages of the review, the reforms we are implementing and the next steps.
Read the President's statement: Reforms to general protections dismissal application processes (pdf).
