The University of New South Wales has been ordered to pay $213,120 in penalties after the Federal Circuit and Family Court found the institution guilty of systemic record-keeping breaches that obstructed a government investigation into staff underpayments.
The penalty, announced by the Fair Work Ombudsman last week, stems from violations of the Fair Work Act between 2017 and 2022. UNSW admitted it failed to maintain proper records for 63 casual academic employees in its Business School, including hours worked, pay rates, and casual loading entitlements. The university also omitted casual loading information from pay slips.
The Fair Work Ombudsman first alerted UNSW to its record-keeping problems in 2018 following a complaint from a casual academic. Despite the warning, the university did not voluntarily disclose or correct the failures, according to the ombudsman.
“The Fair Work Ombudsman will work with universities to correct their problems – but they must engage openly with us about their failures and address issues promptly, or risk ending up in court,” said Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth. “The university admitted its record-keeping and pay slip breaches only after we commenced legal action in 2023.”
A formal underpayment investigation was launched in 2020 after UNSW self-reported widespread underpayments. However, record-keeping failures were so severe that investigators could not fully verify the extent of the underpayments.
Judge Brana Obradovic described UNSW’s failures as “systemic, long-standing, and long-lasting.” Despite senior management being alerted to the problems in 2018, the judge said it took “many years” to address the breaches.
“UNSW has not provided any explanation as to why simple time sheets were not implemented as soon as the first complaint was raised and the issues with its record keeping discovered,” Judge Obradovic said.
The judge emphasised that UNSW, as a large and well-resourced employer, was expected to maintain robust compliance systems. She noted the breaches resulted in “thousands of individual failures” and “what appears to be millions of dollars of underpayments in wages.”
The penalty follows enforcement actions against 11 other Australian universities since 2022, after the Fair Work Ombudsman identified systemic non-compliance in the sector as a priority.
“We are committed to driving cultural change in the university sector,” Booth said. “Universities need to place a much higher priority on investing in governance, human resources, and payroll functions to ensure they comply with workplace laws.”