Late last year, Australia crossed a significant legal threshold in work health and safety enforcement. For the first time, a Commonwealth employer was convicted for failing to manage psychosocial risks under federal work health and safety legislation. The case was brought by Comcare against the Department of Defence, following the death of a Royal Australian Air Force technician. The message from the court was unequivocal: performance management, when poorly designed or executed, can...

Below is a synopsis of the recent case based of the Fair Work Commission decision Pushik v Woolworths Group Limited [2025] FWC 3290. Circumstances A long-serving Woolworths Manager, Mr Pushik, was summarily dismissed after sending a series of unwelcome Facebook messages, emojis, and comments to a younger colleague, Ms Ghimire, over several months. These included multiple “love”, “I love you”, “Do you love me” messages, heart-eyes emojis, Valentine’s Day GIFs, red-rose images, and an offer to...

Many of us have come across a ‘ Fred’ at work. (Made up name by the way and not intended to depict any Fred's I actually know! :-) )...