Two years on rolling contracts, then a refusal - the tribunal saw the funding reason differently
A Queensland tribunal ordered a state department to make a two-year temporary worker permanent, finding its funding and vacancy reasons did not stack up.
The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission handed down its decision on July 3, 2026, setting aside a decision by the Department of Youth Justice and Victim Support to keep a two-year employee on a rolling contract instead of converting him to a permanent role.
The worker had been a Senior Assessor in the Financial Assistance Unit of Victim Assist Queensland since January 8, 2024. He reached two years of continuous service on January 8, 2026 - the trigger point at which, under the Public Sector Act 2022 (Qld), a department must review a non-permanent employee's status and decide whether to make the job permanent.
The department reviewed him and said no. Its decision notice, dated January 23, 2026, leaned on two reasons: the position was funded only to June 30, 2026, and no permanent roles were open in the work unit. The department framed these as "genuine operational requirements" that made conversion neither viable nor appropriate.
Two points were never contested. There was an ongoing need for the work, and the worker was suitable to do it. Once those are established, the Act says conversion should follow unless a genuine operational reason stands in the way.
The Commission found the department did not have one.
On funding, the Commission held that temporary or non-recurrent funding does not, on its own, justify keeping someone on contract - especially where the money keeps being renewed. The role was extended again, to September 30, 2026, while the appeal was still on foot. That, the Commission said, signalled ongoing need rather than a reason to refuse.
On the missing vacancy, the Commission spelled out a distinction worth remembering. A conversion review asks whether there is a continuing need for the person's role, or one substantially the same, across the department - not whether a specific empty position exists to place them in. There is, the Commission noted, "no requirement under the PS Act for a position to be recurrently funded or for a permanent funded vacancy to exist as a pre-condition to permanent appointment." Pointing to the lack of a vacancy applied the wrong test.
The decision notice was a problem in its own right. The Act requires a refusal notice to state set information, including how long the person has been engaged temporarily and how many times the contract has been extended. The department accepted its notice omitted that. The Commission also found it failed to set out the key findings of fact and the evidence behind them. That gap alone was enough to make the decision not fair and reasonable.
For HR teams, the lessons are concrete. The two-year review is not a rubber stamp, and a refusal has to rest on reasoning and evidence rather than a stock phrase. "No funding" and "no vacancy" are shaky ground on their own, particularly after funding has rolled over year after year. And the content a decision notice must contain is not filler - leaving it out can undo the entire decision.
The Commission allowed the appeal, set aside the refusal, and substituted a decision converting the worker to permanent employment.
