Melanie Binet

Board Member

Melanie Binet is a Deputy President of the Fair Work Commission in Western Australia. Immediately before her appointment Melanie was a Director of Legal Services at Gregor & Binet – a boutique multidisciplinary practice specialising in employment law, employee relations, human resources, industrial strategy, workplace inquiries and mediation. Prior to forming Gregor & Binet, Melanie spent more than 15 years practicing in employee relations at top tier national law firms.

Melanie holds a Bachelor of Economics with a double major in industrial relations and management and a Bachelor of Laws – both from the University of Western Australia. As a final year law student she drafted the 30,000 word text of the original WA industrial law section of Halsbury’s Laws of Australia.

During her career, Melanie has been responsible for the development, implementation and defence of industrial relations strategies on a state and national basis. She has a particular interest in human resource matters and has had extensive involvement in the development, implementation and enforcement of workplace policies and procedures, including the management of performance, misconduct, discrimination and bullying.

Her philosophy with respect to the resolution of workplace issues is that resolutions agreed to by the parties are likely to have greater long term effectiveness than those imposed by arbitration. She therefore endeavours to assist parties to reach agreed mediated outcomes wherever possible. Consistent with this approach, she is a proponent of interest based bargaining and is a member of the Commission’s New Approaches Committee which provides training and facilitation services to parties interested in adopting this alternative and highly effective model of industrial relations.

Throughout her career Melanie has played an active role in industry representational bodies. She has held executive roles on committees of the Australian Human Resource Institute, the Law Society of WA, the Industrial Relations Society of WA and the Australian Labour and Employment Relations Association. From 2014 to 2018 she was the Asia Pacific Representative on the World Governing Committee of the International Labour and Employee Relations Association. Consistent with these activities, Melanie is also a member of the International Committee of the Fair Work Commission. She is also a member of the Fair Work Commission Major Resources/Infrastructure Projects Panel and the Organisations Panel.