Australian Employment Law: Fair Work Act Guide by Topic (FY2026-27)

Australian employment law runs mostly on one federal statute, the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), which sets unfair dismissal, redundancy pay, notice, and general protections rules nationally. Long service leave is the exception: it stays state and territory law, with eight separate Acts.

This hub addresses Australian employment law under the federal Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth), which governs unfair dismissal, general protections, redundancy pay and notice of termination nationally, and the eight state and territory long service leave Acts, current as at 19 July 2026. It does not address occupational health and safety law, discrimination law outside the general protections framework, or industrial relations in the small number of sectors outside the national system.

This page is a directory for recordinglaw.com's Australian employment law cluster. It explains how the federal and state systems divide responsibility, sets out the current 2026-27 financial year figures in one place, and links to the detailed pages on ending employment and long service leave.

How Australian Employment Law Is Divided Between Federal and State Law

Most employment law in Australia is federal. The Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) covers the "national system", which includes practically all private sector employers and their employees, plus most state public sector employers in states that referred their industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth. It sets the National Employment Standards (NES), the unfair dismissal jurisdiction, the general protections jurisdiction, and the modern award and enterprise bargaining framework. The one significant area the Fair Work Act does not cover is long service leave, which remains state and territory law under eight separate Acts. That split, one federal statute for almost everything and eight state statutes for one specific entitlement, is the organising idea behind this cluster.

Ending Employment: Four Ways a Job Can End Under Federal Law

Australian law treats the end of employment through several distinct, sometimes overlapping, legal pathways. Each has its own eligibility rules, deadline and remedy structure, and confusing one for another is a common and costly mistake.

• Unfair dismissal asks whether a dismissal was harsh, unjust or unreasonable. It requires a minimum employment period, has an earnings-based exclusion for some employees, and caps compensation.
• General protections and adverse action asks a different question: whether adverse action was taken for a prohibited reason, such as exercising a workplace right. It shares unfair dismissal's 21-day deadline but has no compensation cap and reverses the onus of proof onto the employer.
• Redundancy pay is a separate NES entitlement that arises when a job genuinely no longer exists, calculated on a statutory scale by length of service, subject to a small business exemption.
• Notice of termination is a further NES entitlement, the minimum warning (or payment in lieu) an employer must give before ending employment, calculated on its own separate scale.

Redundancy pay and notice of termination are not alternatives to each other or to unfair dismissal and general protections; an employee whose role is made redundant is typically entitled to both notice and redundancy pay, and may separately have an unfair dismissal or general protections claim if the process itself was flawed or the real reason was prohibited.

Who the National System Covers

The Fair Work Act's national system reaches almost every private sector employer and employee in Australia. All employers that are constitutional corporations are covered directly, and every state except Western Australia referred its remaining industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth, so the practical result is that nearly all private sector employment nationwide, including Western Australian private sector employment, now falls under the one federal framework. State and local government employment generally remains outside the national system and is instead regulated by the relevant state's own public sector industrial legislation. Genuine independent contractors are also outside the Fair Work Act's employee-focused protections, although a person labelled a contractor can still be found to be an employee at law depending on the real substance of the working relationship, not the label the parties chose.

Casual Employees and Continuous Service

A recurring detail across the National Employment Standards is that periods of casual employment generally do not count toward "continuous service" for redundancy pay or notice of termination, even where a casual has worked regularly for years. Redundancy pay's period-of-service table under s 119(3) expressly excludes periods of casual employment from the calculation, and the notice of termination scale under s 117(4) does the same. Long service leave Acts have their own, separately worded continuity rules for casuals that are not uniform across jurisdictions. A worker who has converted, or is eligible to convert, from casual to permanent employment should check the date that conversion took effect, since it can materially change when continuous service is treated as starting for these entitlements.

FY2026-27 Figures at a Glance

Australia's key employment dollar figures re-index on 1 July each year, most recently following the Annual Wage Review 2026 decision ([2026] FWCFB 3500), announced 2 June 2026 and effective from 1 July 2026, which lifted the national minimum wage by 5.97%, the first time it has exceeded $1,000 a week. Modern award minimum rates rose separately by 4.75%. The table below applies to a dismissal, termination or claim that took effect on or after 1 July 2026.

Because these figures move every 1 July, an article or calculator that does not state the financial year it is using should be treated with caution. This site tags every figure with its financial year for that reason.

Long Service Leave: The One Genuinely State-Based Topic

Long service leave (LSL) rewards an employee for an extended period with one employer, typically a lump sum or period of paid leave once a qualifying period is reached. Unlike almost everything else in this cluster, LSL is not federal. Eight separate Acts apply, and they differ meaningfully on qualifying periods, the entitlement formula, and, critically, on when a partial (pro-rata) entitlement is paid out early on resignation, redundancy or illness. Templating one state's rule onto another is a real and recurring error; for example, Victoria pays nothing before 7 years on any ground, while every other jurisdiction has some form of early pro-rata payment.

Two corrections are worth flagging because they contradict what older material sometimes assumes. In Western Australia, the entitlement now comes from the Long Service Leave Act 1958 (WA) itself; the 1978 "LSL General Order" that many private sector employees used to rely on was repealed in 2006 and is no longer current law. And in Victoria, unlike the other seven jurisdictions, there is no early pro-rata payment at all before 7 years, on any ground, including redundancy or illness. See the New South Wales long service leave guide for a worked example of how one state's pro-rata rules are structured; do not assume the same structure applies elsewhere.

The Fair Work Commission and Where Disputes Are Heard

The Fair Work Commission (FWC) is Australia's national workplace relations tribunal. It is the first stop for unfair dismissal applications and most general protections dismissal disputes, generally attempting conciliation before arbitration or referral onward. General protections matters that do not resolve at the FWC, and matters seeking uncapped compensation or civil penalties, proceed to the Federal Court of Australia or the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. Redundancy pay and notice of termination disputes about the underlying calculation are usually pursued as a small claim or, for larger or more complex matters, through the courts, rather than as an FWC application in the same way as unfair dismissal.

Recent Reforms Worth Knowing About

The federal government's "Closing Loopholes" legislative package introduced several changes to the Fair Work Act in phases, including a right to disconnect, a revised statutory definition of casual employment with an employee choice pathway, and criminal penalties for deliberate underpayment of wages. Commencement dates for these specific reforms vary and are best checked directly against the Fair Work Commission and Fair Work Ombudsman websites at the time you need them, since this cluster's current pages do not yet cover them in dedicated detail. Superannuation also changed for FY2026-27: "Payday Super" began requiring employers to remit superannuation guarantee contributions in step with each pay cycle rather than quarterly, a shift best confirmed against the Australian Taxation Office's current guidance before relying on the detail for a specific pay cycle.

Which Page Do You Need?

• Dismissed and think the process or reason was unfair, but no discrimination or workplace-right issue is involved? Start with unfair dismissal.
• Think you were dismissed, disciplined or treated adversely because you exercised a workplace right, made a complaint, or for a discriminatory reason? See general protections and adverse action.
• Your role has been abolished or your employer says your position is redundant? See redundancy pay.
• You want to know how much warning, or payment in lieu, your employer owes before ending your job? See notice of termination.
• You have worked for one employer for many years and want to know about long service leave in your state or territory? Use the jurisdiction table above.

This article provides general legal information about the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) and, where noted, state and territory long service leave legislation, current as at 19 July 2026. It is not legal advice and does not account for your individual circumstances. Figures are stated for the 2026-27 financial year and are re-indexed on 1 July each year; the applicable figure for a dismissal or termination is usually the one in force on the date it took effect, not the date you read this article. For advice about a specific situation, consult a legal practitioner admitted in the relevant Australian state or territory.