For casual employees, their service does not count towards the 6 or 12 month qualifying period unless they were employed on a regular and systematic basis and had a reasonable expectation of continuing employment on a regular and systematic basis.

Small Business Fair Dismissal Code

A dismissal is consistent with the Small Business Fair Dismissal Code if two threshold requirements are met:

• Immediately before the dismissal or at the time of notice of dismissal (whichever happens first), the person’s employer was a small business employer.
• The employer complied with the code in relation to the dismissal.

The code initially requires the employer to identify:

• the number of employees
• whether the employee being dismissed has been employed as a permanent employee or a regular casual for more than 12 months
• whether the employee is being dismissed due to redundancy or serious misconduct.

If the employee has been employed for over 12 months and has not been made redundant or dismissed for serious misconduct, then the employer is required to:

• warn the employee
• provide the employee with a reasonable amount of time to improve performance or conduct
• give the employee a reasonable chance to rectify the problem
• advise the employee of the reason for dismissal and give the employee an opportunity to respond.