Appeals in the Fair Work Commission require the permission of the Commission and ghere is no automatic statutoiry right to pursue them; thus
“Principles relevant to permission to appeal
[4] Under s 604 of the Act, a person aggrieved by a decision of the Commission may appeal the decision with the permission of the Commission. There is no right to appeal, and an appeal may only be made with the permission of the Commission. By virtue of s 604(2), and without limiting when permission to appeal may be granted, the Commission must grant permission if satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so. The task of assessing whether the public interest test is met is a discretionary one involving a broad value judgment.1 The public interest is not satisfied simply by the identification of error or a preference for a different result.2 Considerations that may attract the public interest include that the matter raises issues of importance and general application; that the decision manifests an injustice; or that the result is counterintuitive.3
[5] Permission to appeal may also be granted where there is an arguable case of appealable error, and the decision is attended with sufficient doubt to warrant its reconsideration.4 But it will rarely be appropriate to grant permission to appeal unless an arguable case of appealable error is demonstrated. And an error at first instance is not necessarily a sufficient basis for the grant of permission to appeal.
[6] An application for permission to appeal is not a preliminary hearing of the appeal. In determining whether to grant permission to appeal, it is unnecessary and inappropriate to conduct a detailed examination of the appeal grounds,5 although it is necessary to engage with the grounds to consider whether they raise an arguable case of appealable error.”
Appeal by Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (105N) v BMD Urban Pty Ltd [2024] FWCFB 355 delivered 26 August 2024 per Millhouse DP, Roberts DP and McKinnon C