The factors the Fair Work Commission actually weighs under section 387, in the order it lists them.
An employer needs more than a stated reason. It needs a reasonable investigation, an honest belief and a fair weighing of mitigating circumstances.
The reason for dismissal has to be given before the decision is made, in explicit and plain terms, and the employee has to get a real chance to answer it.
A performance dismissal usually needs a clear prior warning. A support person is not automatic, but refusing one unreasonably can count against the employer.
If a dismissal meets the statutory test for genuine redundancy, it cannot be pursued as an unfair dismissal claim at all, regardless of how it was handled.
You need to have worked for the employer for at least this long before the dismissal to be eligible, and a change of business ownership does not necessarily reset the count.
Earning above the threshold does not automatically rule you out if a modern award or enterprise agreement covers your role.
A small business dismissal is measured against this Code instead of the ordinary fairness factors. This site has not read the Code's own text, and says so.
Fewer than 15 employees, counted across associated entities, with casuals excluded unless they work regular and systematic hours.
Casual status does not automatically exclude you, but working on a regular and systematic basis is part of what the Fair Work Commission checks.
Day one is the day after the dismissal, and only a deadline that itself lands on a weekend or public holiday moves.
Only in exceptional circumstances, weighed against six factors, and the Commission's own guidance is explicit that not knowing the deadline existed is not one of them.
The application is not automatically refused, but you now need to separately convince the Commission your circumstances were exceptional. No published refusal rate exists for unfair dismissal extensions specifically.
The same 21 days, the same exceptional-circumstances standard, and a stated extension refusal rate of about 80%.
Generally, no. The Fair Work Commission's guidance treats them as mutually exclusive once one application about the dismissal has been lodged.
$92.70 for 2026-27, reindexed every 1 July, with a waiver available for serious hardship.
The cap, the most an unfair dismissal order can cost an employer, is $95,050 for a dismissal on or after 1 July 2026. Very few awards come near it: the Fair Work Commission publishes a median of between 5 and 7 weeks' pay, and fewer than 0.4% of applicants receive the maximum.
Four inputs: likely remuneration, deductions for income earned since, the employee's own mitigation effort, and the legal cap. Shock and distress are explicitly excluded.
The Fair Work Commission looks at reinstatement first, and only considers compensation once reinstatement has been ruled out as inappropriate.
The Fair Work Commission itself gives process information but not legal advice, and conciliation lets you bring a representative without requiring one.
Three firms that state, on their own sites, that they take unfair dismissal work on a no-win-no-fee basis. Named directly, not ranked, and not affiliated with this site.
Lodging costs $92.70 for 2026-27, starts the legal process immediately, and gives the employer 7 days to respond.
The employer gets 7 days to respond, a conciliation date is set for around 5 weeks out, and a jurisdictional objection, if raised, is usually dealt with separately.
What the Commission's own sourced factors point to gathering: dates, the stated reason, your response, and anything showing how the process actually ran.
Up to 90 minutes, usually online, with private breakout discussions and no obligation on either side to settle.
The case moves to a formal hearing or conference in front of a Commission Member, who decides the outcome and issues it as a formal decision.
Most Australian employees and employers sit in the national system the Fair Work Commission runs. Western Australia is the sharpest exception, with a large slice of private employment sitting outside it entirely.
A general protections claim says the dismissal was for a reason the law prohibits, not that the process was unfair. This site has not sourced the full list of protected reasons.