The Fair Work Commission (FWC), until 2013 known as Fair Work Australia (FWA), is the

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

industrial relations Industrial relations or employment relations is the multidisciplinary academic field that studies the employment relationship; that is, the complex interrelations between employers and employees, labor union, labor/trade unions, employer organ ...

tribunal created by the ''

Fair Work Act 2009 The ''Fair Work Act 2009'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia, passed by the Rudd government to reform the industrial relations system of Australia. Replacing the Howard government's WorkChoices legislation, the Act established ...

'' as part of the Rudd Government's reforms to industrial relations in Australia. Operations commenced on 1 July 2009. It is the successor of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission, and also performs functions previously performed by the Workplace Authority and the Australian Fair Pay Commission. The office of President of the Fair Work Commission has been held by Justice Adam Hatcher since 19 February 2023. , it operates under the portfolio of the Australian Attorney-General, the Hon

Mark Dreyfus Mark Alfred Dreyfus (born 3 October 1956) is an Australian politician and lawyer. He is a member of the Australian Labor Party (ALP), and has been the MP for Isaacs since the 2007 election. Dreyfus served as the attorney-general of Austral ...

MP. The general manager of the FWC is Murray Furlong, who was appointed in October of 2021. FWC's functions include the setting and varying industrial awards,

minimum wage A minimum wage is the lowest remuneration that employers can legally pay their employees—the price floor below which employees may not sell their labor. List of countries by minimum wage, Most countries had introduced minimum wage legislation b ...

fixation, dispute resolution, the approval of enterprise agreements, and handling claims for unfair dismissal.

Role

FWC is an independent workplace relations tribunal with the power and authority to regulate and enforce provisions relating to minimum wages and employment conditions, enterprise bargaining, industrial action, dispute resolution, and termination of employment. The ''Fair Work Act'' is an attempt to create a more national system for regulating industrial relations in Australia. Each state has the discretion to hand over some or all of their industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth, and should a state decide to refer their powers to a centralized and national industrial relations system, all the employees of that state would effectively be covered by the national ''Fair Work Act''. The FWC has taken over the roles of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) in matters of workplace disputes and industrial actions. It is also involved in the process of determining national industrial relations policies, including setting minimum wages and regulating the award system. Since the introduction of the ''Fair Work Act'', all states except Western Australia have referred their powers to the Commonwealth.

Structure

When originally founded, all FWC members were previously members of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission. The FWC has a President, two Vice Presidents, a number of Deputy Presidents and Commissioners. The General Manager reports to the President and is responsible for administration. This position replaced the Industrial Registrar. The inaugural President was Justice Giudice. He retired from this position in February 2012, and was succeeded by former Victorian Supreme Court judge Iain Ross who served from 2012 to 2022. FWC has members based in Melbourne (M), Sydney (S),

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(B), Newcastle (N),

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(P),

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(A) and

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(C). The members of the FWC, as at September 2023, are:

President

*Justice Adam Hatcher (S)

Vice presidents

*Vice President I Asbury (B) *Vice President M Gibian (S)

Deputy presidents

*Deputy President VP Gostencnik (M) *Deputy President M Binet (P) *Deputy President WR Clancy (M) *Deputy President LE Dean (C) *Deputy President P Anderson (A) *Deputy President AC Colman (M) *Deputy President I Masson (M) *Deputy President A Beaumont (P) *Deputy President A Millhouse (M) *Deputy President T Saunders (S/N) *Deputy President N Lake (B) *Deputy President G Boyce (S) *Deputy President B Cross (S) *Deputy President MJ Easton (S) *Deputy President A Bell (M) *Deputy President T Dobson OAM (B) *Deputy President PJ Hampton (A) *Deputy President BM O'Neill (M) *Deputy President J Wright (S) *Deputy President A Grayson (S) *Deputy President T Roberts (S) *Deputy President P O'Keeffe (P) *Deputy President A Slevin (S)

Commissioners

*Commissioner PJ Spencer (B) *Commissioner DS McKenna (S) *Acting Commissioner MP Bissett (M) *Commissioner CF Simpson (B) *Commissioner T Lee (M) *Commissioner B Riordan (S) *Commissioner LAT Johns OAM (M) *Commissioner NP Wilson (M) *Commissioner T Cirkovic (M) *Commissioner C Platt (A) *Commissioner K Harper-Greenwell (M) *Commissioner J Hunt (B) *Commissioner S McKinnon (M) *Commissioner L Yilmaz (M) *Commissioner S Mirabella (M) *Commissioner P Ryan (S) *Commissioner A Matheson (S) *Commissioner P Schneider (P) *Commissioner S Durham (B) *Commissioner S Connolly (M) *Commissioner S Crawford (S) *Commissioner M Perica (M) *Commissioner P Lim (P) *Commissioner S Allison (M) *Commissioner OT Tran (M)

Additional members

Additional members are dual appointees with other bodies, or sit part-time as expert panel members: *Deputy President DJ Barclay (Hobart, also President of the Tasmanian Industrial Commission) *The Hon Martin Ferguson AM (Expert Panel Member) *Professor Mark Wooden (Expert Panel Member) *Adele Labin-Romain (Expert Panel Member) *Professor Marian Baird (Expert Panel Member) *Mark Cully (Expert Panel Member) *Leonora Risse (Expert Panel Member)

References

External links

Official websiteFair Work Ombudsman Award Finder websiteFair Work Infoline websiteWhat is the Fair Work Act?
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140223073600/http://www.employsure.com.au/fair-work-act/ , date=23 February 2014 Australian labour law Commonwealth Government agencies of Australia 2009 establishments in Australia Commonwealth of Australia courts and tribunals Leave of absence Labour relations organisations in Australia Labor relations boards Courts and tribunals established in 2009