The Fair Work Commission Annual Report for 2014–15 ("Annual Report") notes a 17.5 percent increase in general protections disputes involving dismissal compared with 2013–14.

Under section 365 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) ("Act"), if a person believes that he or she has been dismissed in contravention of the general protection provisions, he/she can apply to the Fair Work Commission ("FWC") to deal with the dispute by way of a conference. If the dispute is not resolved during the conference, the FWC must issue a post-conference certificate under section 368 of the Act. The post-conference certificate enables the dispute to proceed to the Federal Court or Federal Circuit Court.

The Annual Report states that in 2014–15, the FWC received 3,382 general protections applications involving dismissal, compared with only 2,879 in 2013–14. This is consistent with longer-term trends, with 2,429 and 2,162 applications being received by the FWC in 2012–13 and 2011–12 respectively. Of the 3,475 applications which were finalised in 2014–2015, a post-conference certificate was issued in 1,073 cases.

General protections applications not involving dismissal increased by 12.5 percent in 2014–2015. This is also consistent with longer-term trends, with 598 applications made in 2011–12 compared with 879 in 2014–15.

The Annual Report also details the FWC's plans to introduce procedures to streamline the processing of general protections cases. This follows the success of a pilot scheme introduced in several states to improve the FWC's efficiency in dealing with general protections claims. Previously, FWC members had been conducting conferences to assist the parties to resolve general protections disputes. However, the pilot scheme involved training staff conciliators to conduct telephone conferences instead. In his foreword to the Annual Report, the president of the FWC, Iain Ross, stated that the pilot program has given members more time "to concentrate on more complex determinative matters and to list such matters more quickly".

The FWC will adopt these procedures for all general protections applications involving dismissal in 2015–16. This should improve the FWC's ability to deal with the steadily increasing numbers of general protection claims which have been observed in the past five years.

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