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).