Dismissed employees flooding FWC with AI-generated claims

Dismissed employees using artificial intelligence (AI) tools have caused a spike in dismissal-related applications to the Fair Work Commission (FWC). By the end of 2025–2026 financial year, it is likely that the workload of the FWC will have increased by 70% in 3 years, according to FWC President Justice Hatcher.

Justice Hatcher said, in his view, the surge “is principally being caused by the increasing use of AI tools by potential litigants.” He added that the impact of the “AI-driven growth in workload” is now impacting the Commission’s “overall performance”.

This has resulted in conferences and hearings being listed later, and less ability for additional conciliation conferences to be convened to settle disputes. It has also undermined the quality of material submitted to the FWC.

The FWC is proposing that applicants be required to disclose if they have used AI in preparing their materials. Case citations will need to be hyperlinked so that the decision referred to can be verified.

If they don’t comply with the proposed new requirements, Justice Hatcher has said, “the Commission might dismiss your application or order you to pay costs”.

With many self-represented workers turning to AI to prepare material to file in the FWC, a senior member has articulated concerns after navigating an apparently AI-generated claim containing "evolving" reasoning and a non-existent authority.

In a recent decision (Pennisi [2026]) the FWC rejected an employee’s application to lodge a 6-month late general protections claim. The applicant lodged 53 pages of forms and submissions, which the FWC observed had been generated by AI. Consequently, it was difficult to draw out all the relevant considerations from this amount of material, particularly in circumstances where several contentions were repeated numerous times throughout the material, and with each repetition, the submissions changed and the reasons evolved. The applicant relied on non-existent case law.

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