New Legislation To Address AI And The Fair Work Commission's Caseload Challenge

The Albanese Government has moved to address the Fair Work Commission's mounting caseload, particularly in unfair dismissal and general protections dismissal matters.

On 3 June, the Government introduced the Workplace Relations Legislation Amendment (Building Cooperative Workplaces No. 1) Bill 2026. The Bill responds to a sustained increase in Fair Work Commission lodgments, driven largely by the use of AI tools by self-represented litigants. It follows a speech delivered by Fair Work Commission President Justice Adam Hatcher to the Victorian Bar Association in February 2026, in which he publicly called for legislative reform and set out the scale of the problem.

In her second reading speech, Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth said the Bill builds on the Government's first-term workplace reforms with a further set of practical changes aimed at improving how the workplace relations system operates. Consistently with that, the explanatory memorandum presents the amendments