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Private workplace messages may well have been "venting", but in body-shaming a manager and encouraging gendered violence they were also inappropriate and warranted discipline, a commission has ruled.

"Messages are only private until they are shared or found," Queensland Industrial Relations Commissioner Samantha Pidgeon said, highlighting the reason why "well-worn phrases such as, 'Write everything as though it will be read out in court' are so often shared in workplaces".

The case involved a State Department of Transport and Main Roads employee, who was notified in July this year that two allegations of inappropriate communications had been substantiated by his former employer, the Office of Industrial Relations (OIR).

Specifically, the OIR found that between November 2024 and January this year, the employee sent numerous group chat messages to colleagues in which he "ostensibly" referred to the OIR executive director. In some of these messages, the employee: expressed his desire for a meteor to hit "her", noting the size of the required meteor would destroy the planet...