Two years ago, The Industrial Court of New South Wales was officially re-established and initiated operations on 1 July, 2024. It heralded a return of the "one-stop shop" for workplace hearings that had been shut down in 2016. The Industrial Court operates as the judicial arm of the NSW Industrial Relations Commission.
The re-commencement of the Court was hailed by unions, owing to its jurisdiction primarily focusing on the NSW public sector and local government employees.
LSJ Online spoke with James Mattson, Partner at Bartier Perry, who boasts over 25 years of employment law expertise, about the value of the Court’s return and how it has carried out its promise since 2024.
Mattson explains the justification for the initial closure in 2016, and why the NSW Government saw fit to bring it back.
“With the Federal workplace jurisdiction, there was a drop in cases in the Industrial Court. There was, rightly or wrongly, discontent with work health safety prosecutions in the Industrial Court,” he says.
“In 2012, WHS [workplace health and safety] prosecutions largely went to the District Court. The then-NSW Government transferred its judicial functions to the NSW Supreme Court in 2016. With the new Labor government fulfilling its election promises, the Industrial Court was restored including with the return of safety prosecutions.”
NSW is an outlier in operating a superior court for industrial law concerns, though...
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