Australia’s unfair dismissal laws are as sophisticated as they are complicated. This is mainly because of the Australian Constitution which recognizes three distinct levels of government, namely, federal (sometimes referred to as “Commonwealth”), state and local government with each tier holding different legislative powers and each holding its own elections.
Employment laws in Australia are made by two of these, the federal and the state governments. The sharing of legislative powers is forensically very complicated and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the differences is challenging.
Unfair dismissal laws are no exception. The federal industrial relations system (now called the fair work system by most Australians) has an unfair dismissal (and for that matter an unlawful dismissal) jurisdiction administered by the national Fair Work Commission which applies to “national system employers and employees” with some but not all of the State systems dealing with claims by non-national system employers, for example unincorporated sole-traders. To make it more complicated than it should be some States have ceded their legislative powers over industrial relations to the Commonwealth.
You can read more about the practical implications of this to the pursuing of an unfair dismissal case here