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Workplace investigation report inadmissible in anti-bullying case

Workplace investigation report inadmissible in anti-bullying case

The Fair Work Commission has rejected an employee's request to view a workplace investigation report that he alleged includes details of bullying at a colleague's previous job, finding it inadmissible in his current anti-bullying case.
The Deakin University lecturer sought orders in March 2017 from the Commission to stop workplace bullying by a number of colleagues. He also applied for the 2015 report to be produced, claiming it contained evidence of one of his colleagues having been "at least perceived by a number of staff" to have engaged in bullying behaviour while working at the University of Newcastle (UON).
He said the colleague's conduct as a manager at UON was "materially relevant to the substantive issues in dispute".
Deakin University, the colleague, and UON objected to producing the report on a number of grounds, and after considering their refusal, Commissioner Bissett found the colleague's behaviour at UON, in circumstances where the employee wasn't employed at that University, "cannot have relevance to the determination of [the colleague's] behaviour with respect to [the employee] at Deakin".
"In this respect [the employee's] comment that the application is for an anti-bullying order and bullying relates to particular forms of management behaviour that may have been exhibited elsewhere' is misplaced," she said in upholding the objection.
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Location: Sydney NSW, Australia

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