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August 19, 2026 \u2014 8:01pm<\/p>\n
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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n A sacked Aldi store assistant who used AI to make a \u201cjust plain wrong\u201d argument he was unfairly dismissed has been forced to pay $1230 toward the supermarket\u2019s legal costs in the first ruling effectively punishing a former employee for wasting the Fair Work Commission\u2019s time.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, the country\u2019s workplace umpire, which has highlighted the rise of nonsensical AI-generated applications that have led to an explosion in its workload<\/a> and slowed down its processes, said the latest case involving AI was one with \u201cno winner\u201d.<\/p>\n The case is a sharp contrast to a victory for a Macquarie University worker who used AI successfully to become the first casual employee to win orders from Fair Work last week converting him to permanent part-time status, over the opposition of the educational institution\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s case shows a new potential pitfall for workers who rely on AI in making their claims in Fair Work, despite the jurisdiction originally being set up as a free forum to help employees.<\/p>\n Fair Work Commission deputy president Michael Easton said the Sydney Aldi worker, who had used AI extensively to start and continue his unfair dismissal claim, had ignored multiple warnings he might have to pay costs and pressed ahead with his claim when it was clear he could not win.<\/p>\n \u201cI have taken the very rare step of ordering [the man] to pay some of the employer\u2019s legal costs because his unreasonable conduct caused his former employer to incur those costs unnecessarily,\u201d Easton said.<\/p>\n Crucially, the man was not eligible to make an unfair dismissal claim because he had not served the minimum employment period of six months.<\/p>\n He had been dismissed on a date three days short of the minimum requirement, but his AI-generated materials had, from the beginning of the application process, focused on a \u201cdifferent and irrelevant date\u201d according to the judgment.<\/p>\n A week before the hearing was due, Easton reviewed the materials filed by both sides and decided the man\u2019s case was \u201chopeless\u201d because it failed to meet the eligibility requirements.<\/p>\n The initial application filed by the man was \u201cobviously prepared using AI<\/a>\u201d Easton said, containing AI drafting notes including: \u201cHere is your **final clean copy-paste version**, with today\u2019s date inserted as the dismissal date.\u201d<\/p>\n Related Article \u201cI took the time to write to [the man] and explain to him well ahead of the hearing, in plain English, why his case was unlikely to succeed,\u201d Easton said. \u201c[He] was encouraged to discontinue his application, and advised that there could be costs consequences if he continues his claim.\u201d<\/p>\n The man\u2019s AI-generated email reply once again addressed the wrong end date, Easton said, and repeated the same irrelevant AI-generated arguments.<\/p>\n \u201cI took further time to send [the man] another email in the hope everybody\u2019s time and costs would not be wasted by attending a hearing,\u201d Easton said, stating in \u201cmuch stronger terms\u201d the \u201cvery strong likelihood\u201d that his case would not win and that he would have to pay Aldi\u2019s costs, after it applied for compensation.<\/p>\n The man continued his case and sent two further AI-generated submissions that again addressed the wrong end date, Easton said.<\/p>\n It was not until the hearing, where Easton raised the same concerns, that the man, for the first time, agreed that he had not completed the minimum employment period and decided to discontinue his application.<\/p>\n However, the man tried to argue he could not reasonably have been expected to understand the distinction between the date he was notified of his dismissal and the date the dismissal took effect because he \u201cis not a legal expert.\u201d<\/p>\n Easton said the man\u2019s submission was \u201cnot complete AI slop, as that term has come to be used,\u201d in that some of the legal arguments presented were \u201cmore or less correct, though irrelevant\u201d, and the High Court cases cited were real cases rather than hallucinations.<\/p>\n However, he said the submission still focused on the effective date of the man\u2019s dismissal, which was labelled as being \u201cunresolved\u201d despite there being \u201cno doubt\u201d about it.<\/p>\n The man was ordered to pay $1230 in legal costs Aldi wasted in preparing for and attending a hearing that, according to Easton, \u201cshould never have taken place\u201d with losses for both parties that were \u201cutterly preventable\u201d. That represented a small part of Aldi\u2019s overall costs, Easton noted.<\/p>\n Easton said that had the man read the emails from the commission himself, he would have realised the \u201cunfixable flaw\u201d in his case.<\/p>\n \u201c[The man] could have and should have chosen to cut his losses when he had the chance,\u201d Easton concluded.<\/p>\n Aldi was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n Get workplace news, advice and perspectives to help make your job work for you. Sign up for our weekly Thank God it\u2019s Monday newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/a42d28919d71e44c5d5f8eca9f0314c69b35ba30.jpeg\")
The Fair Work Commission said the Aldi worker\u2019s AI-generated claim was not \u201ccomplete AI slop\u201d but that it made irrelevant arguments.Getty<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/5ceeb0e7e7e4b825d1065be50a2bef8c1ddbd56a.jpeg\")
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Millie Muroi<\/a> is the economics writer at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age covering workplace and economics. She was formerly an economics correspondent based in Canberra\u2019s Press Gallery and the banking writer based in Sydney.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"August 19, 2026 \u2014 8:01pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-860842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}