United Firefighters' Union of Australia v Fire Rescue Victoria

The United Firefighters' Union of Australia applied for judicial review of two decisions made by the Fair Work Commission (FWC) regarding the interpretation and application of the dispute resolution clause in the Fire Rescue Victoria Operational Employees Interim Enterprise Agreement 2020. The dispute centred on whether the FWC had properly exercised its private arbitral powers when resolving the matter, specifically whether it had failed to address all issues and defer part of the argument to a later date, and whether it had properly considered a ministerial direction that imposed competing obligations on Fire Rescue Victoria. The Union sought declarations that the decisions were invalid and orders to remit the dispute back to the FWC for arbitration.

The legal issues the court needed to address were whether the FWC was required to determine all issues at once and whether it could defer part of the argument to a later date. Additionally, the court had to decide whether the FWC was required to give an opinion on the validity of the ministerial direction and whether it could consider this direction when declining the relief sought by the Union. The court also had to examine whether the FWC was within its powers to decline to make the order sought by the Union based on the existence of the ministerial direction.

The court found that the FWC had not failed to exercise its private arbitral powers as conferred by the dispute resolution clause in the enterprise agreement. The court reasoned that the term "settle the dispute" included the discretion to defer an argument regarding whether the proposed agreement fettered Fire Rescue Victoria’s powers to a later time when dealing with a related application. Furthermore, the court held that it was within the FWC’s power to conclude that giving an opinion on the ministerial direction question would not "settle" but widen the dispute, and therefore decline to order the relief sought by the Union. Based on these findings, the court dismissed the application for judicial review.

The final order was that the application be dismissed, as per Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.