Interesting. Feel bad for the guy if the psychosocial risk was real, but if not it’s a cheeky way to manage just not wanting to be at work.
Looks like Department tried to do the right thing in terms of multiple welfare checks.
Interesting. Feel bad for the guy if the psychosocial risk was real, but if not it’s a cheeky way to manage just not wanting to be at work.
Looks like Department tried to do the right thing in terms of multiple welfare checks.
If he started in 2002 he is on the old PSS. Sounds as though he reached a superannuation threshold that would pay him $100,000 plus and he didn’t give a flying!
God the PSS was good, the last of the PSS mob seem to be retiring now creating a fair bit of opportunity.
I feel for the generation younger than me, given I'll never be able to retire I'm likely to hoard an EL position far past my usefulness.
why can't you retire? 15% super even for an APS6 after 30 years in the workforce is a couple mil. 10 years at EL1 or above and you're talking closer to 5M+ with no additional contributions.
just as an example, I am 30 and have ~100k in super, if i retire in 10 years at 40, that's some of the time at APS5 and most at APS6, with no additional contributions, I will have 1.5M in todays $ in my super account at age 60. if I work to 60, again no extra contributions and assuming nothing higher than APS6, I'll have 2.3M in todays $. The public service whether you're CSS/PSS or accumulation sets you up for a good financial retirement regardless of the scheme
If inflation goes the same way over the next 30 years, $2.3M in today's money will have the buying power as about $1M in today's money when you're 60. Inflation will keep going up too so you'd probably need to live a very frugal life to avoid running out of money if you retire at 60.
the values i used factored in inflation.... reread your comment "2.3M in todays money will have the same buying power as 1M in todays money". 2.3M in todays dollars is the same as 2.3M in todays dollars lol, there's no point calculating future value without considering inflation
secondly, are you saying that people with only 1M are poor and need to be very frugal? how out of touch can you possibly be
People with $1M in 30 years time who are 60 years old and need to live for another couple of decades or more? yeah that might be tough with whatever the cost of living will be in 2055.
I think you're not as "in touch" as you realise.
where did I say 1M in 30 years? I said 2M in today's money which is closer to 4M in 30 years time.....
I would love to be 60 now and have a mil mate, that's 5x what the average 60 year old has in their super currently
I see you've edited the original comment.
Still your calculations seem a bit off.
You talk about being an APS6 with 100k in super and no extra contributions. Let's say salary is $150k to factor in some pay rises in future EAs, a contribution rate of 15.4% and a high growth investment strategy. That will grow to about 1.2m over 30 years and that's only if you work to 60. A balanced investment strategy will be about $1m in 2055 to pay for whatever the cost of living is at the time.
the edit was before your reply and was to add the second point. i have not touched it since.
you obviously have a lower investment target than i do, mine is full growth and self managed, but regardless, that 1-1.2M will be in TODAYs money. not future money, today. 1M gives you an after tax income of 50k p.a. per person
as a couple that's 100k p.a. after tax which is more than the median household earns. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/measuring-what-matters/measuring-what-matters-themes-and-indicators/prosperous/household-income-and-wealth and more than the comfortable retirement income of 75k p.a. https://www.superannuation.asn.au/consumers/retirement-standard/
if you spend any time at EL1 or above, and make even $50-$100/fn of additional contributions that retirement income sky rockets.
2.3M is not a lot of money to live off of for potentially 20+ years. Especially if you need to pay rent or medical costs. Consider, too, that both major parties seem hellbent on reducing coverage for health care and other social supports and this will onky get worse.
wtf is wrong with you people?????
2.3M is significant! that is also only my super account, doesn't factor in my spouse. it's enough to fund 100k after tax per year for 30+ years.
most govt staff won't be renting. they can easily fund their retirement through the 15% SG and all surplus can go to buying a home. if you can't do that on a govt wage you're spending too much
healthcare will not be burdensome, labor has increased funding for medicare, cheaper and more script options available, they're not the ones cutting, only the libs are.
It's like these people are also thinking that 2 million gets converted into cash under mattress once you hit retirement.
It's still invested, just in lower risk portfolios. Only a fool would convert to cash.
Don’t most EBAs have an abandonment of employment clause usually?
Yes. I worked in HR for a council where someone was issued with an abandonment of employment letter. In turn we received a letter from a lawyer saying she was suing for bullying and harassment because her boss had tried to call her to see why she wasn't coming in to work, check she was OK etc. I don't know what ended up happening but I suspect she didn't really have a case.
It's in Section 29 of the Public Service Act which applies no matter what an EA includes.
Well, I mean, what do you expect when you stop turning up for work with no explanations?
Unauthorised, or unexplained? Big difference.
I'm not clicking that link, but how hard is it just to let your boss know you're not coming in? Or if you need extended time off for any reason, why not just go through the usual channels? I don't know of a single department that would (or could) turn down prolonged stress leave or leave due to mental illness.
He just didn't turn up to work with no contact, Department sent the police for multiple wekfare checks...so, unauthorised.
Amazingly this happened three times before they actually fired him.
The first time was 54 days!
When I worked in APS a new person joined my team. I was on secondment so I never met them. They were bitching about the job to colleagues and a few weeks in they didn’t turn up. We didn’t have work phones and we didn’t have laptops to WFH. The AD called, emailed and sent texts and nothing. After a few days they sent the cops round to do a welfare check as the worst was being imagined.
They were home and fine. The cops said what are you doing? I don’t like it and I’m not going back. They said cool but you should tell them otherwise they will keep reporting this and we will keep coming out.
They ended up resigning. It was bizarre as they had come from another agency and their partner was also APS.
Imagine showing up to work after 54 days of radio silence. It's astounding.
The ability to fire someone (terminate employment) is pretty tightly held. It might not even be delegated down from the head of department/most senior public servant.
That bit says it all - the guy misses 54 days in two months (?? - article says May/June), doesn't tell his employer and the only consequence is a warning! Then he does it again in 2025 and that's why he got the boot. Wonder if a junior person would get the same leniency. Maybe.
Oh wow... to me that sounds like they just assumed he wasnt coming back and couldnt be arsed doing the paperwork. Amazing that he wasn't escorted off the premises after that 54 days. Gotta be some sort of high level bpd/depression going on there to just go awol for that long.
He was directed back to work via formal letter...
Disgusting
Both actually. After termination he sued for unfair dismissal - claiming an unsafe work environment, which of course he therefore could not attend work.
Not a shred of evidence that he complained about any of this beforehand, and the department (IMO) easily performed its due diligence before finally terminating them.
Employees are no longer protected from termination once they have had 3 months of unpaid leave, even if that leave is explained and supported by medical evidence. It’s pretty common for Departments to take steps to terminate employment as soon as that 3-month period expires. Bean counters count the beans 🫘
Yep, my manager came back right before they could do this, did nothing for a week, popping in for a few hours as per usual and just causing problems, then took another 3 wks off straight away. She should have been fired, her behaviour is consistently atrocious and they don’t do anything about it.
There are people who can afford three months of unpaid leave?
I mean, can't blame them. 3 months of unpaid leave is crazy, even if life has becomes a shitstorm.
Mental illnesses often take a long time to recover from, especially if work was the cause. It’s not uncommon for people to be terminated this way.
If they don't say anything, they can claim they were never absent. So in theory, they can still accummulate sick/personal leave because it never gets recorded, and there is no oversight and communication by the manager to HR.
Unless prompted, the leave may never end up being recorded properly by the absent employee. So the missing employee gets a bunch of free leave.
In a department I worked at, there was a staff member in my chain of command who had many unexplained absences, they were going through the same processes listed in the article.
It took me 6 months to realize how toxic the team was and get myself Section 24'ed out into my forever home. Literally never met the person in the half a year I was there.
Sounds like a mental health situation. Or he was taking the piss. Sadly many do so the genuine cases sometimes get people squinting because we've all worked with at least one person who's totally gamed the system and got away with it.
Is there a link to the decision? I can’t open the CT link
Is this what you were after? "In a decision published on Monday, January 12, 2026, deputy president Lyndall Dean found the man had not been unfairly dismissed with the department having a valid reason."
You can find it on the FWC website
https://www.fwc.gov.au/document-search/view/1/aHR0cHM6Ly9zYXNyY2RhdGFwcmRhdWVhYS5ibG9iLmNvcmUud2luZG93cy5uZXQvZGVjaXNpb25zLzIwMjYvMDEvVTIwMjUtMTE4MTZEZXdhcnZDb21tb253ZWFsdGhvZkF1c3RyYWxpYTYxMzk0NjAyMjk3YjZlZTUtNTJmMC00MmM1LTg5NTctMjIwNGE5NWE0NWMyNzA0MDA5ODEtNTIwNy00MzE5LWIzMWItYTVlYzU5NTYxODU4LnBkZg2?sid=&q=U2025%24%2411816
Fucking malingerers. These fuckwits need a good kick in the ass & pay back all the tax payers $ they have scammed. 99% of public servants that do the right thing pay for these ass hats behaviour & their reputations are tainted by these losers. Managers have to spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with their shit, & are obliged to play by the rules while these dickheads absolutely game the system.
This is the problem with the public service…it’s too hard to fire someone.
I just joined and my two predecessors were both fired for incompetence (not meeting expectations).
Granted I was also informed it was one person's full time job for 5 months each time. But they set the standard they will do it if the team isn't performing. We have a very high performance team (all of us come from IT consulting or startups).
Is it because they had both been there for 5 months only and still within probation? I think the comment means if u are permanent staff then it’s very hard to get rid of u, as far as I know if u are still in probation it’s easy to fire you.
Sorry I was ambiguous. They were both full time but someone dedicated 5 months of full time work to accumulating evidence and driving the process to getting them out.
The last paragraph is interesting. I read it as suggesting there may have been more than one suicide in the branch or division, that this person raised concerns about the culture, and the only response from the branch head was that the deaths were “nothing to do with work”.
While the Commission ultimately upheld the dismissal, it still feels unlikely this was simply a long-serving EL1 deciding not to turn up. That said, at some point an employer can reasonably expect someone that senior to engage HR and medical support and work to a plan, rather than disengaging entirely.
I guess you will be gone in 2 weeks if you work in a private company? APS is so lenient.
[deleted]
About as lazy as tradies, hospitality and retail workers. No one wants to work any more. /s
Well that's a ray of hope.. What work do you do?
Won't say what state. Won't say what department. I knew someone who basically did this for 11 years (Yes, that's not a typo: Eleven years!). They would go sometimes up to 3 months without setting a foot into an office, and sometimes weeks without phoning in an absence. This was long before the days of WFH too. This person was so notorious they even had a colour coded spreadsheet (traffic light system) dedicated for them alone. There was a glitch in this particular department, where the HR system kept giving them leave, so it never went into any negative owing... \I believe this has long since been fixed.*
In the end they didn't even end up with any punishment, as they still retired with their super.
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