The lack of transparency in relation to the collection of financial and other data about contraventions of workplace laws has led to some publicly funded organizations undermining the Government's Fair Work Act 2009, Health and Safety Act 2011 and the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act 2013. Some of the flow on effects include:

 

A.   Where there are systemic issues in relation to contraventions of workplace laws, these cannot easily be identified and addressed.

 

B.   It is difficult to dislodge perpetrators of unfair work practices (including bullying and unfair dismissals) particularly if they are supported within a toxic workplace. 

 

C.   External boards and monitoring frameworks do not easily detect fraud in relation to contraventions of workplace laws because the perpetrator or the toxic leader is able to control the narrative and budgets do not indicate the expenditure on contraventions of workplace laws.

 

D.   Employers using the rationale of high operational and HR/Staffing costs are likely to take a tough stance when bargaining enterprise agreements with unions and the Fair Work Commission.  For example, employers can argue that they require greater flexibility in relation to restructures and/or redundancies (reduction of permanent staffing and possibly more casual workforce) because their overall cost for staffing operations is far too high. However, the data that is touted as the cost for operations and HR/staffing is likely to include the costs associated with the employer's contravention of workplace laws and poor decisions in the way HR policies have been managed.

 

E.   The taxpayer continues to be disadvantaged as liabilities continue to increase for contraventions of workplace laws

 

F.   The data presented by public sector agencies in relation to operational and HR/Staffing costs is somewhat flawed as it includes the cost of poor management decisions in relation to HR issues and includes the cost paid out for contraventions of workplace laws. Refer to taxpayer  liabilities to better understand what constitutes the extra that employers pay for contraventions of workplace laws.

 

Under the current circumstances, the only way in which public sector employers can be held accountable is when individual workers report the wasteful spending of taxpayer funds

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