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It was "difficult to understand" how an employee's private sexual conversations with someone outside of work became a work-related matter, a commission has commented in upholding his appeal.

This case addressed the extent to which private out-of-hours conversations between an employee and someone unrelated to the workplace could be the subject of disciplinary action by an employer, Queensland Industrial Relations Commissioner Peter O'Neill said.

He heard that in June 2023 the Metro North Hospital and Health Service received a complaint about its director of medical services reliever, regarding his engagement with members of the public.

In January 2025, the employer informed him it had concluded that in January 2023, the employee told a woman he'd met online that if he was interviewing her for a job, she should take her "knickers" off, put them on the table, and put her feet up on the desk with her legs apart...