South Australian Employment Tribunal

The Hon. R.P. WORTLEY (15:27): My question is to the Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector. Will the minister inform the council about the performance of the South Australian Employment Tribunal?

The Hon. K.J. MAHER (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Attorney-General, Minister for Industrial Relations and Public Sector) (15:27): I thank the honourable member for his question and for his lifelong interest in industrial relations and his advocacy for working people over a very long period of time. The South Australian Employment Tribunal (SAET) is South Australia's work-related employment and industrial relations dispute tribunal. It's a specialist employment tribunal that operates in the interests of the entire South Australian community by ensuring that both workers and employers have access to a practical, efficient and low-cost forum for dispute resolution.

The consistent feedback this government has received from stakeholders on both sides of the industrial fence is that the SAET represents one of the best practice models that other states and territories look to in terms of how they conduct their own employment courts. I recently had the opportunity to meet with representatives from the SAET, including the President, the Hon. Justice Steven Dolphin, who shared with me some of the information about the SAET's performance over the past financial year.

Following a significant 22 per cent increase in workers compensation caseload between 2019-20 and 2022-23, the number of workers compensation disputes filed over the past financial year has returned to the historical average of just under 5,000 per year. This is supplemented by around a further 1,000 non-workers compensation applications last financial year for matters such as industrial disputes, monetary claims for unpaid wages and work health and safety disputes.

In 2023-24, the SAET's clearance rate—that is, the number of applications resolved compared to the number of applications filed—was over 100 per cent for the second year in a row. This means that for two years running, the SAET has resolved more disputes than it has received, reducing its overall case load and delivering shorter timeframes for disputes to proceed to hearing.

In 2023-24, 85 per cent of cases filed in the SAET were resolved within 12 months of lodgement. The median timeframe from lodgement of a dispute to resolution was just under 12½ weeks, noting that 71 per cent of disputes were resolved through the SAET's compulsory conciliation process. For those disputes which could not be resolved at conciliation and needed to proceed before a judicial member, the median time between a dispute being filed and a decision being made was 34.4 weeks, an improvement of around 46 per cent over the last two years.

These figures represent a focused effort by the SAET on its case management process, including a particular focus on alternative dispute resolution by the tribunal's commissioners and the practice of judicial-led settlement conferences. Together with a number of reforms recently passed in this chamber, including the Statutes Amendment (South Australian Employment Tribunal) Act, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the SAET and the quality of the processes to its litigants, I hope these figures continue to improve and continue to give confidence to the community that work-related disputes will be resolved quickly and practically in this state.