Samuel Andriessen was dismissed from National Workplace Safety Services Pty Ltd (NWSS) in December 2025. When he brought an unfair dismissal claim, the company argued it was too small for the ordinary rules to apply, but it never produced the records needed to back that up, and the Commission has now thrown out its objection.
What the Commission decided
Commissioner Rogers had already found, in an earlier ruling, that Mr Andriessen's period working as a casual employee counted towards the minimum employment period, meaning he was protected from unfair dismissal.
That left a second argument from NWSS: that it was a small business employer when it sacked Mr Andriessen, and that it had followed the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code. Mr Andriessen disputed this, saying the company actually employed more than fifteen people at the time.
The Commission directed NWSS to produce its evidence, including annual business statements and December payroll records showing how many people it employed, plus anything else it wanted to rely on. NWSS missed that deadline entirely.
What followed was a string of chances the company did not take up. Commissioner Rogers' chambers chased NWSS for its materials, and the company asked for more time, which was granted. It missed that extended deadline too. When asked to explain why the objection should not simply be decided on the material already before the Commission, NWSS wrote back but did not answer the question. Instead, it sent a witness statement about the merits of the dismissal itself, saying nothing about how it had complied with the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code.
Chambers wrote again to make clear exactly what was missing. Nothing more was heard from the company.
With no evidence at all about how many people NWSS employed on the day of the dismissal, Commissioner Rogers found the point remained genuinely in dispute. Because it was NWSS that had raised the objection, the responsibility to prove it fell on the company, not on Mr Andriessen. Unable to be satisfied that NWSS was a small business employer, the Commissioner could not find that the Code had been followed, and dismissed the objection.
What was actually in dispute
The argument never really got to the substance of whether NWSS treated Mr Andriessen fairly. It turned entirely on whether NWSS could establish, with evidence, how many staff it employed at the relevant time. The company had every opportunity to file payroll and business records showing its size, and was granted an extension to do so, but never did. Its late witness statement addressed the wrong question altogether, focusing on the merits of the dismissal rather than the employee headcount the Commission had asked about.
What this means
The decision does not resolve whether Mr Andriessen's dismissal was fair. It only clears away NWSS's attempt to have the claim knocked out early on small business grounds. The matter can now proceed to be considered under the ordinary unfair dismissal framework. The outcome is a reminder that a business raising a jurisdictional objection carries the burden of proving it, and that missing directions and deadlines in the Fair Work Commission process can be fatal to that argument, regardless of how the underlying dismissal might otherwise have been assessed.