President’s statement on implementing government reforms and our performance

Fair Work Commission

Fair Work Commission President, Justice Hatcher has issued a statement. The statement provides an update on our implementation of significant reforms while also meeting or exceeding a range of performance targets for established jurisdictions and functions.

Implementing Secure Jobs, Better Pay changes

The Secure Jobs, Better Pay Act amended existing and introduced new jurisdictions. This expanded our functions significantly in several areas including:

  • bargaining
  • enterprise agreements
  • workplace sexual harassment
  • disputes about flexible work arrangements and extensions of unpaid parental
  • our role in relation to registered organisations.

Justice Hatcher highlights the extensive work undertaken to support business, employees and the community with the changes through proactive and targeted communication and education. From the outset of the implementation process in December 2022, we committed to placing our users’ needs at the heart of the design of our services. We will continue meet this commitment.

Performance summary 2022-23

In the statement, Justice Hatcher notes our implementation of significant reforms while also meeting or exceeding a range of performance targets for established jurisdictions and functions.

In 2022-23 we:

  • met or exceeded our Portfolio Budget Statement (PBS) Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
  • delivered timely finalisation of cases overall and timely reserved decisions
  • assisted the informal settlement without arbitration of around 90% of 12,500 disputes under an award or agreement and unfair dismissal cases, helping to save time and cost to parties in the resolution of their cases
  • met or exceeded the expectations of 82.2% of surveyed users.

At 30 June 2023, we had received 31,520 lodgments and finalised 32,180 matters in 2022-23. This represents a clearance rate of 102%. We are not carrying any backlogs in any case type into the 2023-24 reporting period.

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