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Employer wins appeal against "remarkable" $265k damages order
An appeal tribunal has overturned a ruling that an HR leader had a "knee-jerk reaction" to an employee's criminal record and discriminated against her, finding instead that her actions were "perfectly sound".
In doing so, the ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal Acting Presidential Member Dr Warwick Neville stripped the employee of her $265k damages award – an amount he considered "remarkable" in the circumstances.
The employee had worked with the ACT Government's Community Services Directorate (CSD) on a series of rolling contracts since 2021. In March 2023 she was offered permanent employment at the Canberra Institute of Technology (CIT), due to begin in late April, and she negotiated an earlier end date for her contract.
Shortly after this, both employers were notified about the employee's criminal record – which she had disclosed during the CSD recruitment process and discussed with its previous head of HR...
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