Employment Law in Victoria, Explained

Two systems, one workplace

If you work in Victoria, your rights come from two places at once. The Fair Work Act supplies the national layer: minimum wages, the 121 modern awards, unfair dismissal, general protections, parental leave and flexible work. Victoria handed its industrial relations powers to the Commonwealth, so nearly every private-sector employee in the state lives under that national system.

The second layer is Victorian, and it never went away: equal opportunity law for discrimination, long service leave, health and safety rules policed by WorkSafe, and the WorkCover scheme for workplace injuries, including psychological ones.

The layer your problem sits in is what decides your forum, your remedy and, above all, your deadline. The same bad six months at work can be a 21-day Fair Work problem, a 12-month VCAT problem and a six-year court problem all at once, and walking through the wrong door first can shut a better one behind you. Untangling that on day one is most of what our employment lawyers do before a single form gets filed.

The deadlines that decide Victorian cases

If you have been dismissed and want to challenge it as unfair or unlawful, you have 21 calendar days to reach the Fair Work Commission. Discrimination applications at VCAT should be made within 12 months, and choosing that door is easier once you know what VCAT is and how a hearing there actually runs. On the federal side, the Australian Human Rights Commission can knock out discrimination and sexual harassment complaints about conduct more than 24 months old. Underpaid wages and broken contracts run on six years, and each week that passes deletes the oldest week of the claim.

If any of those clocks might be running on your situation, settle the question today. The first call to 1800 130 120 is free, and its whole purpose is to tell you what your claim is, where it belongs and what date you are working to.

What this means in practice

The national layer handles your dismissal and your pay. If you have been sacked, our unfair dismissal process guide shows how a claim runs from lodgement, and either way talk to us inside the 21 days. If your payslip does not match your award, penalty rates explains the six-year back-pay claim and how far yours is likely to reach.

The Victorian layer is the one that deals with who you are and how safely you are made to work. Discrimination on the basis of age, sex, race, disability, pregnancy and other protected attributes can proceed under state or federal law, and the choice is tactical, so our workplace discrimination page weighs up the four forums side by side. Health and safety failures, including psychological harm from bullying, engage WorkSafe and WorkCover alongside Fair Work remedies.

Then there is long service leave, the most Victorian entitlement of all: seven years of continuous service unlocks it, one week accrues for every 60 weeks worked, and it must be paid out if you leave after seven years. Underpaid long service leave at termination is a claim we see monthly, usually from people who assumed the final payslip was checked by someone.

Nobody loses an employment case because they called a lawyer too early. Every year, Victorians lose winnable cases because they called in week four of a three-week deadline.

One call sorts the map

You do not need to arrive knowing whether your matter is state or federal. That mapping is the first ten minutes of a free call with MK Law on 1800 130 120, and you will finish the call knowing where you stand, how long you have got, and what we would do next if you want us to act.