Unfair Dismissal and “Genuine Redundancy” in a Restructure: Can a redundancy remain genuine when the employer advertises a similar management role the very same day?

Based on the authentic Australian judicial case Applicant v Respondent (U2024/10471) [2025] FWC 1074, this article disassembles the Court’s judgment process regarding evidence and law. It transforms complex judicial reasoning into clear, understandable key point analyses, helping readers identify the core of the dispute, understand the judgment logic, make more rational litigation choices, and providing case resources for practical research to readers of all backgrounds.

Chapter 1: Case Overview and Core Disputes

Basic Information

Court of Hearing:

Fair Work Commission

Presiding Judge:

Commissioner

Cause of Action:

Application for an unfair dismissal remedy under s 394 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth)

Judgment Date:

16 April 2025

Core Keywords:

Keyword 1: Authentic Judgment Case
Keyword 2: Genuine redundancy
Keyword 3: Redeployment reasonableness
Keyword 4: Operational requirements
Keyword 5: Job advertisement and role comparison
Keyword 6: Consultation obligations under award or enterprise agreement

Background

A senior employee in a kitchen design business unit was told, in a short meeting described as a “business update”, that their role was being made redundant effective immediately. The employer said a downturn and losses required a restructure and headcount reduction. The employee accepted the business was under pressure but challenged the redundancy as not genuine, pointing to a striking fact: a management role was advertised online on the same day as the termination. The employee argued the advertised role looked substantially similar to the work they had been doing and that redeployment should have been offered.

The dispute mattered because, under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), a genuine redundancy operates as a complete defence to an unfair dismissal claim. If the dismissal is genuinely redundant, the unfair dismissal application cannot proceed.

Core Disputes and Claims

The core dispute was not simply “was the dismissal unfair?” The real legal focus was whether the dismissal was a case of genuine redundancy within the statutory test, and in particular whether it would have been reasonable to redeploy the employee into other roles, including the newly advertised role.

The Applicant sought reinstatement into a comparable managerial role or compensation. The Respondent objected to the Commission’s ability to grant relief, contending the dismissal was a genuine redundancy and therefore the unfair dismissal claim must be dismissed at the jurisdictional stage.

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Chapter 2: Origin of the Case

Key Events Leading to Litigation

The Applicant’s working life in the industry was grounded in kitchen design, oversight, and ensuring designs were correct before production. The relationship with the Respondent began with a design-focused role and then grew into a leadership role. In practical terms, that promotion changed the Applicant’s day-to-day life: they were no longer only producing designs; they were coordinating a team, setting rhythms of work, and being held accountable for quality and efficiency in the design pipeline.

Over time, the Respondent’s business unit faced a sustained downturn. The evidence described a sharp gap between targets and reality. When sales fall, the “quietness” is not abstract: fewer customer enquiries, fewer new jobs, and fewer problems to solve. In many businesses, the first response is to tighten budgets. In a design-and-installation ecosystem, that pressure often translates into a question that is both commercial and human: “Do we still need this leadership layer, or can the remaining staff absorb it?”

Detail Reconstruction: Relationship, Work, and Financial Interweaving

The employment relationship operated within a broader corporate group, meaning roles and vacancies existed across multiple entities and locations. That matters legally because redeployment under the statutory test can extend beyond the immediate employer to an associated entity. Practically, it also means that a redundancy conversation can become a “map of possibilities”—sometimes realistic, sometimes superficial—depending on how it is handled.

The Applicant’s leadership role contained an explicit emphasis on leading the design team and managing the design process. The Respondent’s business pressures created a competing operational logic: the leadership role cost money, and the Respondent contended that remaining designers could perform the design work without a dedicated team leader.

Conflict Foreshadowing: Decisive Moments

Three events foreshadowed the litigation:

1. A broadcast-style internal communication about a site closure and reassurance about further redundancies, which shaped the Applicant’s expectations about job security.
2. A meeting invitation framed in bland language, which the Applicant interpreted as ordinary business discussion rather than a job-in-jeopardy meeting.
3. The termination itself, delivered swiftly, followed by the discovery of a job advertisement timed on the same day—an external signal that appeared, from the Applicant’s perspective, to contradict the employer’s “no longer required” narrative.

These moments set up the central question: was the redundancy genuine, or was it a label applied to a decision that in substance involved replacing the Applicant?

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Chapter 3: Key Evidence and Core Disputes

Applicant’s Main Evidence and Arguments

1. The same-day job advertisement
   • An online advertisement appeared on the same day as termination, time-stamped mid-afternoon, for a managerial role in the kitchen sector.
   • The Applicant pointed to the advertised requirements and responsibilities, which included collaboration with designers, on-site troubleshooting, design software capability, spatial planning, compliance awareness, and product knowledge.
   • The Applicant argued these were substantially the same as their leadership and design oversight functions.
2. Role comparison narrative
   • The Applicant provided detailed assertions linking each advertised responsibility to tasks they said they performed, such as daily coordination calls, troubleshooting issues during installation stages, overseeing design software and onboarding staff, and ensuring compliance and product expertise.
3. Alternative positions said to exist
   • The Applicant relied on a post-restructure organisational chart that showed roles marked as vacant, arguing redeployment should have occurred into those roles given industry experience.
4. Process concerns
   • The Applicant relied on the manner of notification and the shock of the termination meeting, including the late appearance of “support person” language and the unexpected presence of a people-and-performance representative.

Respondent’s Main Evidence and Arguments

1. Operational requirements and financial downturn
   • Evidence of ongoing losses and market downturn pressures was used to explain the restructure and headcount reduction decision-making.
2. Job no longer required
   • The Respondent contended that the Applicant’s leadership job was removed and the design functions were redistributed to remaining designers with oversight shifted to another manager.
3. The advertised role was different in substance
   • The Respondent asserted the advertised managerial role was, in reality, a replacement for an installation-focused role rather than the Applicant’s design leadership role.
   • The Respondent emphasised trade qualifications and extensive cabinet making and installation experience as central requirements.
   • The Respondent relied on evidence about the actual nature of installation management: installer support, joinery expertise, and trade-based troubleshooting.
4. Redeployment not reasonable
   • A list of many vacancies across the wider group was presented during the termination meeting. The Respondent argued redeployment options were provided, and the Applicant did not identify any suitable roles.
5. “Vacant” roles were not vacant at the relevant time
   • The Respondent said roles shown as vacant later were not vacant at the date of dismissal; they became unfilled after later resignations.

Core Dispute Points

1. Was the Applicant’s job no longer required to be performed by anyone due to operational changes?
2. Was there any applicable consultation obligation under a modern award or enterprise agreement, and was it complied with?
3. Would it have been reasonable to redeploy the Applicant to:
   • the newly advertised role; or
   • roles said to be vacant in the revised organisational structure; or
   • any other roles within the employer’s enterprise or associated entities?

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Chapter 4: Statements in Affidavits

How Each Side Built Its Case Through Affidavit Evidence

The Applicant’s affidavit-style evidence used a practical, experience-based method: it did not merely assert “I could do the job.” It walked line-by-line through the advertised role’s responsibilities and translated them into lived workplace tasks. This is a common self-represented technique: the witness tries to collapse the legal question into a common-sense question—“If I did these things yesterday, why can’t I do them tomorrow?”

The Respondent’s affidavit evidence used a different persuasion structure: it acknowledged surface similarities in wording while insisting that the real work was different. In effect, the Respondent said: “You are reading the advertisement. We are telling you what the job actually is.” That distinction matters because redundancy cases often turn on the difference between:
– the headline description of tasks, and
– the essential requirements that make the role viable in practice, such as trade credentials, installer management, and hands-on joinery expertise.

Comparing Two Versions of the Same Fact

A single fact demonstrates the boundary between inference and proof: the same-day job advertisement.

• The Applicant framed it as direct evidence of replacement.
• The Respondent framed it as coincidental timing tied to a different role (installation-focused) and unrelated to the Applicant’s removed leadership job.

The Commission’s task was to decide which narrative aligned with the objective evidence, including success profiles, required qualifications, and what the Applicant conceded under cross-examination.

Strategic Intent Behind Procedural Directions

In redundancy disputes, affidavit directions tend to force parties to do two things:
1. Identify the job that was removed as a “collection of duties” rather than a title alone.
2. Confront redeployment realistically, by producing vacancy lists, success profiles, and evidence of skills, qualifications, and timing.

The procedural structure serves an evidentiary purpose: it prevents a case from being decided on rhetoric about fairness alone and instead compels a staged, statutory analysis.

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Chapter 5: Court Orders

Procedural Arrangements Before the Final Hearing

Before the final hearing, the matter proceeded in a way typical of unfair dismissal cases involving a jurisdictional objection:
– The Respondent raised a jurisdictional objection on the basis of genuine redundancy.
– Evidence was filed and a hearing was listed to determine the objection, because if genuine redundancy was established, the Commission could not grant unfair dismissal relief.
– The parties presented witness evidence and were cross-examined.
– The Commission assessed whether the matter could continue beyond the jurisdictional threshold.

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Chapter 6: Hearing Scene: Ultimate Showdown of Evidence and Logic

Process Reconstruction: Live Restoration of Cross-Examination

The hearing’s tension centred on two competing realities:

• The Applicant’s reality: the redundancy meeting was unexpected and brief; the advertisement felt like immediate replacement; the business messaging earlier suggested no more redundancies; and the vacancy list felt performative rather than practical.
• The Respondent’s reality: the business faced sustained losses; the Applicant’s leadership job was removed; and the newly advertised role required trade-based installation expertise that the Applicant did not have.

Cross-examination did what it is designed to do: it turned broad claims into precise admissions.

A key moment occurred when the Applicant was pressed on trade qualifications and cabinet making experience—elements described as critical to the installation-focused role. Under questioning, the Applicant conceded they did not have certain core trade requirements. That concession did not merely weaken the Applicant’s argument; it sharpened the legal lens. Redeployment is not assessed in the abstract. It is assessed against what the job truly requires and what the person truly brings at the time.

Core Evidence Confrontation: The Decisive Clash

Two documents became the symbolic battlefield:

1. The Applicant’s role success profile, emphasising leadership and design process oversight.
2. The installation-focused role materials, emphasising trade background, cabinet making, on-site measuring, and installation support.

The Applicant anchored their case in the overlap of listed responsibilities. The Respondent anchored its case in the essential nature of the role: installations, trade qualification, and cabinet making experience.

The hearing also confronted the “vacancy” argument. The Respondent’s evidence was that roles shown as vacant later were not vacant on the dismissal date. This is a timing issue, and timing is often determinative in redeployment analysis: the statute asks what was reasonable “in all the circumstances” at the time of dismissal.

Judicial Reasoning: How Facts Drove the Outcome

The Commission’s reasoning moved as a chain rather than a leap. It started with the statutory definition of genuine redundancy and worked through each step:

“The test is not whether the functions or duties themselves continue, but whether the job itself survives.”

That statement was determinative because it answered a common misconception. Many employees reasonably think: “If someone still does parts of my work, I wasn’t redundant.” The Commission treated redundancy differently: a job can disappear even if its tasks are redistributed, provided the position as an organised role is no longer required.

The Commission also confronted modern job advertisement language, recognising that job titles and buzzwords can mask reality:

“Buzzwords and neologisms replace words with discernible meaning in job advertisements.”

This mattered because the Applicant relied heavily on the advertisement’s wording. The Commission accepted there were surface similarities, but it did not stop there; it looked for the pivot point that distinguishes genuine redeployment from superficial resemblance.

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Chapter 7: Final Judgment of the Court

Orders and Outcome

The Commission determined that the dismissal was a case of genuine redundancy within the meaning of s 389 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). As a result, the unfair dismissal application could not succeed and was dismissed.

Procedural Direction-Like Observations

Although the claim was dismissed, the Commission made pointed observations about redundancy processes expected of large employers with access to experienced human resources practitioners, including the need for clearer communication and more meaningful redeployment processes.

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Chapter 8: In-depth Analysis of the Judgment: How Law and Evidence Lay the Foundation for Victory

Special Analysis

This case is jurisprudentially valuable because it shows how a redundancy can remain genuine even where, to an ordinary observer, the employer’s actions look contradictory. Advertising a role on the same day as a redundancy invites suspicion. Yet the law does not decide the case on suspicion. It decides it on the statutory test and the evidence that connects, or fails to connect, the advertisement to the removed job.

The case also highlights a modern workplace phenomenon: job advertisements often use broad, attractive language that can make two distinct roles look similar on paper. The Commission’s approach was to treat the advertisement as a starting point, not an endpoint.

Judgment Points

1. A genuine redundancy analysis is a staged statutory inquiry, not a broad fairness assessment
   The Commission emphasised that genuine redundancy is a complete defence to unfair dismissal. This means the decisive legal work occurs at the threshold: if redundancy is genuine, the application ends, even if aspects of process were imperfect.

2. “Job” is a structured concept: a collection of duties entrusted to a role
   The reasoning treated a “job” as more than tasks. The question becomes: after operational change, is there any organised role left for the employee to discharge? Redistribution of tasks does not necessarily preserve the job.

3. Surface similarity in responsibilities does not prove equivalence of jobs
   The Applicant’s strongest intuitive argument was that the new advertisement contained responsibilities overlapping with the Applicant’s former duties. The Commission accepted overlap existed. However, equivalence depends on the totality of the role, including essential requirements.

4. Trade qualification and actual experience can be decisive in redeployment reasonableness
   The Commission treated qualifications and experience as legitimate factors in assessing whether redeployment would be reasonable, particularly where the role has a trade-based core that the employee lacks.

5. Timing matters in redeployment: what was available at the date of dismissal
   The “vacant roles” argument failed because the evidence established those roles were not vacant at the relevant time; they became vacant due to later resignations. Reasonableness is assessed against what could realistically have been offered then, not what emerged later.

6. A wide vacancy list can be legally relevant yet practically hollow
   The vacancy list across the wider group was important because redeployment can extend across associated entities. Yet the Commission also recognised the real-world limitation: handing an employee a large list without notice and without meaningful assistance can be of limited utility, even if it satisfies a formal narrative of redeployment consideration.

7. Process criticism does not automatically defeat a genuine redundancy defence
   The Commission criticised the employer’s communication choices, yet still found genuine redundancy. This teaches a hard lesson: poor process can attract criticism and reputational risk, but it does not necessarily convert a genuine redundancy into an unfair dismissal if the statutory elements are satisfied.

8. Language choices can shape credibility and perception
   The use of neutral phrasing like “business update” to convene a termination meeting was criticised. While it did not change the statutory outcome, it affected the Commission’s view of process quality and signals the practical importance of frankness and procedural dignity.

Legal Basis

The Commission’s framework followed s 389 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth):

• s 389(1)(a): The employer no longer required the person’s job to be performed by anyone due to changes in operational requirements.
• s 389(1)(b): The employer complied with consultation obligations in a modern award or enterprise agreement (if any applied).
• s 389(2): Not genuine redundancy if it would have been reasonable to redeploy within the employer’s enterprise or an associated entity.

The Commission also relied on established authority that tasks continuing does not necessarily mean the job continues, and that skills, qualifications and experience can be relevant to redeployment reasonableness.

Evidence Chain

The Commission’s logic can be expressed as: Conclusion = Evidence + Statutory Provisions.

1. Operational change evidence
   • Evidence of losses, market downturn, and headcount reduction supported the existence of operational reasons.
   • The restructure redistributed leadership responsibilities and absorbed design leadership into other management arrangements.
2. Job no longer required evidence
   • The Applicant’s leadership role ceased to exist as a distinct position.
   • Remaining designers absorbed design tasks; oversight moved to another manager.
3. Consultation evidence
   • Evidence established no modern award or enterprise agreement consultation obligation applied to the Applicant’s employment.
4. Redeployment evidence
   • The Applicant was shown many vacancies across the wider group but did not identify suitable roles.
   • The advertised role required trade-based installation expertise; the Applicant lacked trade qualifications and cabinet making experience.
   • Roles said to be vacant were not vacant at the dismissal date.

Judicial Original Quotation

The Commission identified the pivot point between similarity and redeployment viability:

“It requires both a cabinet making trade qualification as well as experience in cabinet making.”

This statement was determinative because the Applicant’s redeployment argument depended on role equivalence. The Commission accepted some similarity in design-related components, but the trade-based core was treated as the decisive difference.

The Commission also made a direct finding on redeployment reasonableness:

“It was not reasonable to redeploy… given the required trade qualifications.”

That mattered because s 389(2) is the employee’s escape hatch: even if the job is removed, redundancy is not genuine if reasonable redeployment existed. The Commission held that this escape hatch was not available on the evidence.

Analysis of the Losing Party’s Failure

The Applicant’s case failed not because the same-day advertisement was irrelevant, but because it could not be connected to a legally reasonable redeployment pathway when the role was examined in full.

1. Over-reliance on advertisement wording
   The Applicant treated the advertisement as a definitive description of the job. The Commission treated it as potentially misleading and required deeper proof of the role’s real substance.

2. Concessions about essential requirements
   Once the Applicant conceded the absence of trade background and cabinet making experience, the Commission had a concrete basis to reject redeployment reasonableness.

3. Timing flaw in the “vacant positions” argument
   The Applicant relied on a later organisational snapshot. The Commission’s analysis was anchored to the dismissal date, and the evidence showed those roles were not available then.

4. Mismatch between preferred work and available roles
   The Applicant’s own evidence was that the broader group vacancies did not align with their passions and professional focus. That evidence made it harder to say redeployment into those roles would have been reasonable.

5. The law’s structure is unforgiving
   Even where process appears abrupt or unfair in human terms, the statutory structure treats genuine redundancy as a jurisdictional barrier. The Applicant needed to defeat at least one statutory element. The Commission held the Applicant did not.

Implications

1. Redundancy disputes are decided on the structure of the job, not the survival of tasks. If your duties are redistributed, the law may still treat your job as gone if the role itself no longer exists.
2. A job advertisement that looks similar can be powerful evidence, but only if you can prove the roles are equivalent in substance, including the essential qualifications and practical functions.
3. Redeployment arguments rise and fall on timing. What matters is what was realistically available at the dismissal date, not what appears vacant later.
4. Process matters for dignity and organisational trust, even if it does not change the legal outcome. A poorly handled redundancy can still be “genuine” but may attract judicial criticism and future risk.
5. Your best protection is early preparation: document your qualifications, clarify your role’s scope, and if redundancy signals emerge, ask targeted questions about redeployment pathways that actually fit your skills.

Q&A Session

Q1: If my employer advertises a similar job right after dismissing me, does that automatically mean the redundancy is not genuine?

No. It is a strong factual red flag, but it is not automatic proof. The key issue is whether the employer no longer required your job to be performed and whether it would have been reasonable to redeploy you into the advertised role, assessed against the real substance of that role and your qualifications at the time.

Q2: What does “reasonable to redeploy” actually mean in practice?

It generally means more than “a job exists somewhere.” It involves whether the role was genuinely available, whether you had the skills and qualifications to perform it, whether the location and conditions were realistic, and whether offering it would have made operational sense at the time.

Q3: Can an employer win on genuine redundancy even if the redundancy meeting is handled badly?

Yes. Poor process may attract criticism and increase risk in other legal contexts, but genuine redundancy focuses on the statutory elements. If those elements are proven, the unfair dismissal claim cannot proceed even where communication was abrupt or opaque.

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Appendix: Reference for Comparable Case Judgments and Practical Guidelines

1. Practical Positioning of This Case

Case Subtype: Employment and Workplace Disputes — Unfair Dismissal — Genuine Redundancy Defence — Redeployment Reasonableness and Post-Termination Recruitment
Judgment Nature Definition: Final determination of a jurisdictional objection within an unfair dismissal proceeding

2. Self-examination of Core Statutory Elements

Core Test: Unfair Dismissal — Fair Work Act

When assessing an unfair dismissal claim, the Commission ordinarily considers whether there was a dismissal, whether it was harsh, unjust or unreasonable, and whether any relevant code applies. However, a genuine redundancy finding prevents the claim from succeeding.

Core Test: Genuine Redundancy — Fair Work Act

A dismissal tends to be a genuine redundancy if each of the following is satisfied:

Step 1: Operational Requirements — Was the job no longer required?

You must examine whether the employer no longer required the person’s job to be performed by anyone because of changes in operational requirements.

Practical self-check points include:
– Was there a real restructure, business contraction, loss of revenue, or operational shift?
– Did the role as an organised position cease, even if tasks were redistributed?
– After the restructure, did any employee continue to hold the same organised role with substantially the same accountabilities?

Risk warning: A restructure explanation can be persuasive, but if the evidence shows the position continued in substance under a new title, the redundancy tends to be assessed as higher risk.

Step 2: Consultation Obligations — Was consultation required, and if so, was it done?

If a modern award or enterprise agreement applies and contains redundancy consultation obligations, the employer must comply with them.

Practical self-check points include:
– Are you covered by an award or enterprise agreement?
– Does it include a redundancy consultation clause?
– Were you informed of the proposed changes and given a meaningful opportunity to respond?
– Did the employer genuinely consider your responses?

Risk warning: Failure to comply with a required consultation clause tends to undermine a genuine redundancy defence, although outcomes depend on the precise instrument and evidence.

Step 3: Redeployment Reasonableness — Would it have been reasonable to redeploy?

Even if the job is removed, the redundancy is not genuine if it would have been reasonable in all the circumstances to redeploy the employee within the employer’s enterprise or an associated entity.

Practical self-check points include:
– Were there actual vacancies at the time of dismissal?
– Were those roles within reasonable geographic and practical reach?
– Did you have the essential qualifications and experience at the time?
– Would training time be modest and operationally realistic, rather than speculative or lengthy?
– Did the employer genuinely explore options, or merely provide a broad list without targeted matching?

Risk warning: Redeployment arguments tend to be higher risk when they depend on later vacancies, unclear job advertisements, or roles requiring trade credentials or licences the employee does not hold.

Core Test: Unfair Dismissal — Harsh, Unjust, Unreasonable

If genuine redundancy is not established, the Commission may assess:
– Valid reason related to capacity or conduct
– Notification of that reason
– Opportunity to respond
– Support person considerations
– Procedural fairness factors

Risk warning: Even where redundancy is claimed, procedural issues can remain relevant if genuine redundancy is not proven.

Core Test: General Protections

If an unfair dismissal claim fails or is not available, a different pathway can be a General Protections claim where adverse action is taken because the worker exercised a workplace right.

Practical self-check points include:
– Did you make complaints or inquiries about employment?
– Did you use entitlements such as leave?
– Is there evidence linking that action to the termination decision?

Risk warning: General Protections matters can involve a reverse onus of proof and tend to be legally complex.

Core Test: Sham Contracting

If the dispute involves a worker classification issue:
– Are you truly an independent contractor or a disguised employee?
– Who controls the work, tools, risk, and ability to work for others?

Risk warning: Classification disputes are fact-heavy and can differ across industries and contractual structures.

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3. Equitable Remedies and Alternative Claims

Procedural Fairness and Related Administrative Concepts

In employment contexts, “procedural fairness” may appear indirectly:
– If the dispute involves internal processes or quasi-administrative decision-making within a large organisation, lack of meaningful opportunity to respond can be relevant in some claims.
– However, unfair dismissal genuine redundancy disputes are statute-driven and may not turn on fairness language alone.

Risk warning: It tends to be unsafe to assume a bad process alone will defeat a genuine redundancy defence; the statutory elements still dominate.

Ancillary Claims

If an unfair dismissal claim cannot proceed due to genuine redundancy, potential alternative pathways may include:
– A General Protections claim if there is evidence of unlawful reason.
– Contractual claims if notice and entitlements were not paid according to contract and statute.
– Misleading representations claims are less common in pure redundancy contexts but may arise if representations induced detrimental reliance.

Risk warning: These pathways depend heavily on evidence and should be assessed carefully because they can be costly and may require higher thresholds of proof.

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4. Access Thresholds and Exceptional Circumstances

Regular Thresholds

• Unfair dismissal applications typically must be lodged within 21 days of dismissal, subject to limited extension discretion.
• Eligibility depends on minimum employment period and coverage by award, enterprise agreement, or being below the high income threshold.

Risk warning: Late filing tends to be a relatively high risk barrier unless there are strong reasons for delay.

Exceptional Channels

• Time extension may be available if there are exceptional circumstances explaining delay, but the outcome tends to depend on the precise facts.
• If a redundancy defence succeeds, unfair dismissal relief is not available, so the exceptional pathway is not “within” unfair dismissal; it may involve considering different causes of action instead.

Suggestion: Do not abandon a potential claim simply because one pathway is blocked. Compare your circumstances to alternative statutory routes, but avoid assuming success because each route has distinct thresholds.

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5. Guidelines for Judicial and Legal Citation

Citation Angle

It is recommended to cite this case in legal submissions involving:
– Genuine redundancy under s 389, especially where post-termination job advertisements appear similar to the redundant role.
– Redeployment reasonableness analysis where qualifications and essential role requirements are decisive.
– The principle that a job may be redundant even if some functions continue through redistribution.

Citation Method

As Positive Support: When your matter involves a restructure with redistribution of duties and a dispute about apparent role similarity, this authority can support a structured analysis of “job” versus “tasks” and redeployment reasonableness.
As a Distinguishing Reference: If the opposing party relies on this authority, emphasise differences such as actual vacancy timing, the presence of matching essential qualifications, or evidence that the new role was a continuation of the old job in substance.

Anonymisation Rule

When referring to parties in summaries or educational materials, use procedural titles such as Applicant and Respondent.

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Conclusion

This case shows that redundancy can remain genuine even when an employer’s actions look, at first glance, inconsistent—because the legal question is not appearances, but statutory proof. In genuine redundancy disputes, victory is built on precise role definition, timing, and evidence of real redeployment feasibility.

Everyone needs to understand the law and see the world through the lens of law. The in-depth analysis of this authentic judgment is intended to help everyone gradually establish a new legal mindset: True self-protection stems from the early understanding and mastery of legal rules.

Disclaimer

This article is based on the study and analysis of the public judgment of the Fair Work Commission (Applicant v Respondent (U2024/10471) [2025] FWC 1074), aimed at promoting legal research and public understanding. The citation of relevant judgment content is limited to the scope of fair dealing for the purposes of legal research, comment, and information sharing.

The analysis, structural arrangement, and expression of views contained in this article are the original content of the author, and the copyright belongs to the author and this platform. This article does not constitute legal advice, nor should it be regarded as legal advice for any specific situation.

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