Fair Work Commission

Hints for searching documents

Keyword search is available for all document types. This can be combined with any of the filters on the left side menu.

• use double quotes " " for exact matches of strings of letters, numbers and symbols, eg "$78.00 per fortnight" or "small business employer" or "s.364"
• do not leave a space at the beginning or end of a word or phrase
• most results can be sorted by using the 'sort by' option before running the search
• to find a specific decision issued on or after 1 January 2009 enter its unique MNC number (identifier), eg "[2010] FWA 122"
• print or email search results using the buttons above the results list
• copy or bookmark the URL for the search to redo the search in the future.

Common Boolean search operators

Search operator " "

The search operator " " returns results containing the exact string of characters. If an exact match is not found, it returns results containing the best match to the requested string of characters.

Example: "music therapist"

Search operator AND

The search operator AND returns results with both strings.

Example: "road transport" AND Linfox

Search operator OR

The search operator OR returns results with either string. 

Example: "s.365" OR "section 365" OR "s 365"

Search operator NOT

The search operator NOT returns search results containing the former string but not the latter.

Example: "road transport" NOT Linfox

Search operator *

The search operator * is a wildcard used to represent one or more 'any character' in a string.

Example: industr* for industrial, industry, industries, industrious

Search operator ~

The search operator ~ is used for proximity searches, returning results that contain the words within a certain proximity of each other.

Example: "bankrupt liquidation"~20 will return any results where bankrupt and liquidation are within 20 words of each other.

Filters within search documents results

Filters are available on the left side menu. These are different for each type of documents.