Respondents in a general protections dismissal case

Form F8 – general protections application involving dismissal – asks for details of the former employer who dismissed the employee, allegedly for a prohibited reason. This is the employee’s direct employer before they were dismissed. This is the respondent in the case.

Contact person

The applicant will need to name a contact person for the former employer. This is a person who can handle the application for the former employer.  They may be a senior manager, human resources manager or someone else with authority to deal with the case.

We will send a copy of the application to the contact person.

A contact person is different from a respondent. A respondent must participate in the case. The contact person can be changed by the respondent at any time.

Additional respondents 

In some cases, an applicant might include additional respondents. This part of Form F8 is optional. An applicant should only name additional respondents if the applicant is claiming they were involved in the former employer’s contravention.  

What ‘involved in’ a contravention means 

Being ‘involved in’ a contravention is defined by law. See section 550 of the Fair Work Act. It means the person or entity: 

• helped with, recommended or caused the contravention
• influenced the contravention (for example, by making threats or promises)
• was knowingly concerned in or was a party to the contravention, or
• planned with others to make the contravention happen.

Before naming any additional respondents on Form F8, an applicant should:

Each respondent named in the application must respond

Each named respondent must file Form F8A - Response to a general protections application involving dismissal.

• A respondent can include an additional respondent in their Form F8A if they have the same response to the application. You must tell us which respondents are covered by your response if you do this.
• If you have a representative, include their details in the Form F8A response. You must clearly specify which respondents have a representative.
• A respondent may say they had nothing to do with the dismissal and want to be taken out of the case. A respondent can only be removed from a case if the applicant asks for it and a Commission Member agrees to remove them.

You must serve a copy of your Form F8A response on the applicant (and their representative, if they have one) and any other respondents named in the Form F8 application.

We send a copy of the Form F8 application (and any documents lodged with it) to each respondent named in the form.  

This is so they can understand the applicant’s side of the case. We will ask each respondent to respond to the application.

Conference process 

In most cases we will organise a conference, where a staff conciliator or Commission Member will try to resolve the case. If more than one respondent is involved, it can be harder to reach a solution because each person may respond differently.