WISE Workplace

22/07/2026

This month, seven men were arrested as Victoria Police investigate alleged fraudulent conduct involving Greater Shepparton City Council and a local business between 2022 and 2026. Detectives executed search warrants in mid-June; parties were interviewed and released pending further inquiries. No charges have been laid, and the allegations remain untested.

But for anyone responsible for governance, the most instructive detail isn't the arrests; it's how the matter surfaced. The council's own internal governance and financial processes identified concerns in 2025. The council then referred the matter to Victoria Police itself, with its CEO describing the referral as consistent with its obligations and commitment to accountability.

The sequence of detecting internally, investigating properly and referring appropriately, is exactly how these matters should unfold. Consider the alternative: alleged conduct spanning four years coming to light through a whistleblower, an auditor, or the media instead. The reputational and financial difference between an organisation that found it and an organisation that missed it is enormous.

Fraud and corruption rarely announce themselves. They surface as anomalies - things like procurement patterns, invoice irregularities, conflicts nobody declared. Once identified, how organisations respond becomes critical. . Engaging Wise Workplace immediately ensures independence, preserved evidence, procedural fairness and defensible outcomes. Dealing with red flags that indicate fraud or corruption in your workplace? Get WISE!

https://loom.ly/tpMhOxY

The men were arrested by detectives as part of an ongoing investigation after a council in Victoria's north says it referred alleged fraud involving council employees to police.

21/07/2026

Earlier this month, the Fair Work Commission handed employers a reminder that contract drafting does real work. Three cleaners engaged by the ACT's Education Directorate argued that when their contracts expired in January 2026, they had effectively been dismissed. They'd been hired as a temporary "surge" workforce to cover permanent staff clearing a leave backlog, then extended once when the program ran long. They argued the rolling extensions, the ongoing nature of the work, and the fact that colleagues on identical contracts were offered permanency gave them a reasonable expectation of continuing employment.

The Commission disagreed. Under the Fair Work Act, there is no dismissal where employment for a specified period ends at the close of that period. The contracts were explicit: titled temporary, clear end dates, an express statement that employment ended at term, and language ruling out any expectation of ongoing work. The workers never claimed they didn't understand those terms. The general protections applications failed at the jurisdictional gate, as such, the fairness arguments were never reached.

The lesson cuts both ways. Clear fixed-term drafting held up even after an extension. But strip out those express terms, or undermine them with casual "we'll probably keep you on" conversations, and the reasonable-expectation argument becomes far harder to defeat. What your managers say between contracts matters as much as what the contracts say.

Managing fixed-term arrangements, extensions and endings well takes deliberate process. Wise Workplace can help you get it right.

https://loom.ly/4qFRgd4

Three cleaners argued rolling contracts gave them a right to stay. The Commission tested that claim

20/07/2026

A recent Fair Work Commission decision is a timely warning for every employer who has ever watched an upset employee walk out the door.

The case involved a pick packer who complained after being required to take annual leave — and found herself accused of misconduct for raising it. Distressed, she left the workplace. Before she had even arrived home, her employer emailed to "accept her resignation." When she replied disputing that she had ever resigned, the employer simply disregarded it.

The Commission described the employer's conduct as "remarkable" — and not as a compliment. Deputy President Cross found the employer had effectively dismissed her, rejecting arguments that she had voluntarily resigned.

The principle is well established: a resignation given in the heat of the moment, or in genuine distress, may not be a resignation at all. An employer who rushes to lock it in risks converting an ambiguous exit into an unfair dismissal at their own initiative.

The safer path is the opposite instinct: pause, allow a cooling-off period, and confirm the employee's true intention once emotions have settled. Document the process, not just the outcome.

Unclear or disputed resignations sit at the intersection of procedure, evidence and human distress; exactly where employers most often get it wrong. If you're navigating one, Wise Workplace can help you get the process right before it becomes a claim.

Contested or unclear resignations? Get WISE!

https://loom.ly/FfVDUf4

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

10/07/2026

$270k for Breaching a Restraint...and the Appeal Just Failed

The Federal Court has dismissed an appeal by two former employees ordered to pay their ex-employer more than $270,000 in damages after breaching post-employment restraints, a result first reached in Monarch Advisory Group Pty Ltd v Puxty.

The facts are familiar to anyone who has watched a team member walk out the door and straight into competition. Two financial planners, bound by 12-month non-solicitation clauses, set up their own company and took clients with them. The court found the restraint reasonable (twelve months matched the annual renewal cycle of the client relationships it protected) and awarded damages for lost profits and the reduced value of the business, even though the employer's loss was, in part, hypothetical.

Two lessons for employers. First, well-drafted restraints are enforceable, and breaching them has real consequences. The clause survived because it was tailored: no longer, and no wider, than the legitimate interest it protected. Second, and this is the critical part that decides cases, outcomes like this are built on evidence. Suspicion that a departing employee is soliciting clients is not proof. Establishing what happened, preserving records, and documenting the conduct properly is what turns a grievance into a judgment.

Restraints protect the business you built. Investigate properly, and they hold. A properly conducted, independent investigation into complaints or allegations regarding breaches of restraint ensures the facts are established fairly and defensibly, before positions harden and options narrow. Dealing with concerns regarding employment contract clauses? Get WISE!

https://loom.ly/RBlXAnQ

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

09/07/2026

When a Manager Becomes the Hazard: A Warning from the Fair Work Commission...

A decision reported by HR Daily this week should have every employer's attention. The Fair Work Commission upheld the dismissal of an aged care manager whose team members were frequently in tears, with colleagues described feeling as though they were "walking on eggshells".

Deputy President Tony Saunders found the employer had no real choice: it was required to act to meet its statutory obligation to ensure the health and safety of its employees. The termination grounds included creating a psychosocially unsafe environment for the team and failing to follow lawful and reasonable directions.
Three lessons stand out.

First, psychosocial safety is no longer an aspiration — it is an enforceable duty. A manager's conduct can itself be the workplace hazard, and regulators and tribunals now treat it that way.

Second, employers who tolerate harmful leadership behaviour are exposed in both directions: to the affected staff, and to their safety regulator.

Third (and this is where most employers stumble) acting decisively is only defensible if the process behind it is sound. Complaints must be handled properly, allegations put fairly, evidence tested, and findings documented. A justified dismissal executed badly becomes an unfair dismissal payout.

That engaging Wise Workplace when complaints and allegations arise is a sound decision. Independent, experienced investigators ensure the response is procedurally fair, legally defensible and handled with care for everyone involved, so that when action is required, the outcome stands. Getting it right protects your people. And it protects you. Dealing with HR matters involving senior management? Get WISE!

https://loom.ly/g3lYgBg

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

01/07/2026

Karl Stefanovic's abrupt exit from Nine following a podcast interview that triggered an advertiser and shareholder backlash has reignited conversations about the gravity of employment contract clauses barring employees from bringing their workplace into disrepute.

When an allegation of a contractual breach lands (especially one with reputational heat attached) the instinct is to move quickly and make the problem disappear. But decisions made under that pressure, without fact-finding, are exactly the ones that unravel later: contested terminations, disrepute and outside-work clauses tested in court, and what one employment lawyer predicted would become "a bit of a legal bunfight."

Proper investigation isn't a delay tactic. It establishes what actually happened, whether a clause was genuinely breached, and whether your response is defensible. It protects the organisation — and the fairness owed to the person involved.

Reputational risk is real. But reacting to it without establishing the legal facts simply trades one risk for another.
At WISE Workplace, independent investigation and fact-finding is what we do. Before you act, find out what you're acting on. Get WISE!

https://loom.ly/-BIQ8h0

Advertiser boycott risk shaped Nine's fast exit deal with Karl Stefanovic

30/06/2026

The recent KPMG whistleblowing scandal should make every Australian organisation pause and reflect. A whistleblower raised serious concerns about the alleged misuse of a client's confidential information to chase work. In raising these concerns, they tried the internal routes first. When those went nowhere, they went to a federal senator...and within weeks, KPMG had lost its chief executive, its chair and its head of audit.

But the person who paid the highest price? The whistleblower. They resigned and carried a heavy personal and career cost, and told the parliamentary committee that, knowing what they know now, they would not do it again.
The failure here wasn't a missing reporting line. It was what happened after the report: an internal review later judged inadequate, and a serious matter reportedly treated more like a routine staff complaint than the audit problem it was.

This is exactly the gap an independent whistleblowing service is built to close. Wise Workplace's Grapevine is a confidential hotline, staffed 24/7, that lets people make anonymous disclosures to trusted, experienced operators, with expert, independent triage of every report. It sits outside the internal hierarchy — so concerns are heard and escalated without the conflicts that let problems fester.

A policy on paper isn't protection. Independent, trusted reporting is. If your people wouldn't feel safe speaking up tomorrow, that's the problem worth fixing today. Need to explore your workplace's whistleblowing capabilities? Get WISE!

https://loom.ly/l6b3fpc

The former consulting executive reported that the firm had used confidential information to win work, resulting in a major scandal.

28/06/2026

Mining powerhouse Fortescue has now been hit with a sexual harassment and discrimination class action in the Federal Court, joining enterprises BHP and Rio Tinto, both sued in late 2024. The allegations, which are untested and yet to be proven, describe harassment, assault and retaliation against women at remote worksites and accommodation villages, stretching back years.

Whatever the courts ultimately find, the pattern is the part employers can't look away from. When three giants in one sector face near-identical claims, this stops being a "bad apple" problem and starts looking like a culture problem.
Here's the uncomfortable truth about high-risk industries...remote sites, FIFO rosters, male-dominated crews, isolated accommodation, entrenched hierarchies: the same conditions that make the work physically dangerous are often the ones that let harassment, abuse and misconduct take root and go unreported.

Our key message is that you cannot fix what you refuse to examine. Proactive cultural reviews do what reactive investigations after harm has occurred can't do; surfacing how power, isolation and "the way things are done around here" actually operate, before they become a statement of claim. They show you where the risk lives, why people stay silent, and what's been quietly normalised. Under positive-duty obligations, this isn't a nice-to-have anymore. It's the standard.

WISE Workplace conducts independent, expert workplace cultural reviews that find the risk and support a culture of safety. Operating a high-risk business or concerned about your workplace culture? Get WISE.
https://loom.ly/55gkxGQ

Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest's mining giant Fortescue has been slapped with a landmark class action alleging systemic sexual harassment, discrimination and toxic work sites.

25/06/2026

A self-represented worker just learned the hard way that "I'll let the robot handle it" is not a litigation strategy. An Australian appeal bench reportedly delivered a blistering rebuke to a worker who leaned on generative AI to draft his application, emails, and submissions — then filed them, apparently, without so much as a read-through.
The bench's verdict? AI is "merely a tool." It can't exercise judgment, weigh evidence, or decide anything. That part still requires a human with a pulse and a clue.

Here's the uncomfortable bit for employers: this cuts both ways. If a worker can torpedo their own case with unchecked AI, your organisation can torpedo a disciplinary process exactly the same way. AI-drafted allegations. AI-summarised "evidence." A show-cause letter nobody actually reviewed. One hallucinated fact or one skipped step, and your "procedurally fair" process becomes Exhibit A in an unfair dismissal claim.

AI doesn't understand natural justice. It doesn't know your worker. And it won't be the one explaining itself to the Commission. You will. Disciplinary and investigation matters demand impartiality, rigour, and genuine expertise; not a confident paragraph generated in four seconds.

That's where WISE Workplace comes in. We deliver independent, expert workplace investigations and advice built on procedural fairness, so your decisions stand up to scrutiny, not just spellcheck.

Let the humans handle the judgment. Get WISE!

https://loom.ly/vMiysFc

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

17/06/2026

Wise Workplace Training is pleased to present this upcoming professional development program.