Reasons to object to an unfair dismissal claim

If an applicant was not an employee, you may object to their claim. People who are not employees include independent contractors, volunteers and people working for a labour hire company.  For more information see:

• Who the law protects from unfair dismissal
• Independent contractors
• Vocational placements and volunteers

An applicant may list you as the employer incorrectly. The most common example is a labour-hire worker who works for an agency rather than directly for your business. The employer is generally the entity that pays the employee. If you are not the employer, you may object to the claim.

For more information see:

• Who is the employer?
• Labour hire workers

If you did not dismiss the employee, you may object to the claim. As the employer, your actions must have caused the termination for an employee to be eligible. For more information see:

• What is dismissal
• Terminated at the employer's initiative

In some circumstances, an employer may need to make an employee’s position redundant. When this redundancy is genuine, you can object to the claim. For more information see:

• Redundancy
• What is a genuine redundancy?

You may have employed an applicant for a specific period of time. This might be for a season, to complete a specific task or for a traineeship. If the reasons for ending the employment relationship was the conclusion of the specified period of time or task, you may object to the claim. For more information see:

• contract for a specified task
• contract for a specified period of time
• contract for a specified season
• training arrangement

Applicants must work for your business for the minimum employment period to be eligible for unfair dismissal. If you are a small business with fewer than 15 employees, the minimum employment period is 12 months. For other employers, the minimum employment period is 6 months.

For more information see:

• What is the minimum period of employment?

If the applicant was employed as a casual employee, see periods of service as a casual employee.

A casual employee must be employed on a regular or systematic basis to be eligible for unfair dismissal. The work does not have to be frequent, often, uniform, or constant. But there will normally be a repetitive pattern to the work. You may object if the applicant’s casual employment was not regular or systematic.

For more information see who is a regular employee information on  Periods of service as a casual employee.

If you are a small business with fewer than 15 employees, you may object to the claim. You will need to explain how you complied with the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code in dismissing the employee. 
For more information see:

• Dismissal rules for small business
• What is the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code?

The high-income threshold is adjusted annually on 1 July. If the applicant is not covered by a modern award or enterprise agreement, they must earn less than the high-income threshold to be eligible (inclusive of wages/salary and other entitlements). If they earned more than this amount, you may object to their claim. 

See high-income threshold for more information.
 

Most employees are part of the national system. Whether an employee is part of the national system or not depends on:

• the location (state or territory)
• the nature of the relationship
• the legal status of your business.

If the applicant was not a national system employee, you may object to their claim. For more information see:

• Who Australia's national workplace relations system covers
• Who the law protects from unfair dismissal
   

Multiple applications for the same dismissal are not allowed. There are several options for an applicant to choose from when applying for a dismissal remedy. If an applicant submits multiple applications about the same dismissal, you may object to the claims.  For more information see multiple actions.