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A manager who provided "harrowing" descriptions of feeling degraded after experiencing homophobic comments and s-xual harassment at work has been awarded $116k in compensation and penalties by the Federal Circuit Court.

The harassment "ended up being almost like a game" between a contractor and customer, who would "bounce off each other" when making sexualised remarks to the manager, Judge Salvatore Vasta found.

In July 2025, the Storage King site manager sought declarations that the two individuals had breached section 527D of the Fair Work Act in sexually harassing him at work. (He initially alleged his employer had also contravened the Act, but discontinued this action when its defence submissions showed the contractor and customer were never its employees.)

The Court heard that the contractor was engaged to help clean and maintain particular sites, including one the manager was responsible for, while the customer "became a consistent feature of the workplace environment" due to the volume of his business with the branch...