He fought his bonus rating in detailed emails but said he was too unwell to seek a review
A former Commonwealth Bank employee blew his review deadline by 711 days. The tribunal backed the bank's refusal to reopen his stress claim.
In a decision dated September 22, 2026, the Administrative Review Tribunal upheld the bank's decision not to reconsider its rejection of his psychological injury claim. He said he had been too unwell to act in time. The tribunal pointed to his doctors' notes - and to detailed emails he wrote about his bonus in the same period.
A shrinking team and a vaccine direction
The worker joined the bank in 2009. According to his statement, his workplace stress began in October 2021, around the time a proposed group vaccination policy was circulated. He was uncomfortable getting vaccinated and told his manager so a number of times.
His team had grown fast. He said a role he started in March 2018 began with five staff and quickly expanded to 40, at one point 60. In April or May 2022, the numbers were cut from 40 to 19, which he thought was not enough for the workload.
That May, he was given a "direction to comply" on vaccination. He relented and had the jab. After that, he said, the policy was scrapped.
On October 1, 2022, according to his statement, he realised he "could not take it anymore". He stopped work around that time.
Injury accepted, claim rejected
He lodged a workers' compensation claim on February 26, 2023, for an adjustment disorder with anxious and depressed mood. The next month, he was made redundant.
The bank, a licensed self-insurer under the Commonwealth workers' compensation scheme, rejected the claim. The decision-maker accepted that he had a psychological injury and that his work had significantly contributed to it. But the decision-maker found the condition resulted from "reasonable administrative action taken in a reasonable manner", pointing to the vaccination policy and the redundancy. Under the scheme, that exclusion means no compensation is payable, even when work played a significant part.
On June 2, 2023, he emailed the bank: "My sincere apologies for taking this long to reply." He wanted a reconsideration but needed more time "to effectively respond to certain areas in the statements which I believe impact the decision."
The bank gave him until July 3, 2023.
His request arrived on June 13, 2025.
The bonus emails
His explanation was that his psychological condition had significantly impaired his ability to manage legal and administrative matters.
The tribunal did not accept that. It found no evidence backing up the claimed incapacity, and some evidence that pointed the other way. Three doctors who saw him between July 2023 and June 2025 all recorded, in substance, that he had no disordered thought, perception or judgement.
Then there was the bonus. After his redundancy, he may have been eligible for a bonus that depended on a certain performance rating. In September 2023, he was told he had been rated lower, which would rule it out.
In November and December 2023, he contested the rating in detailed emails, the first sent to an executive general manager. In the tribunal's view, those emails showed an ability to present "a well-reasoned argument of far more technicality than requesting review would have required."
At the hearing, he explained the difference. The rating dispute needed no new evidence. He could draw on his memory.
Requesting a review, by contrast, needed no more than reasons. "On any view, that is a low bar," the tribunal said.
Waiting for a report he didn't need
The tribunal accepted one part of his story. He believed it was futile to seek a review without new evidence.
He hired lawyers in about June 2024, and a psychiatrist was briefed that month. The report did not arrive until February 2025, some eight months later.
His advocate argued he had "no chance" without a psychiatric report rating his permanent impairment at 10% or more. The tribunal said this appeared to mix up the Commonwealth scheme, which covers the bank's employees, with the state scheme. The report had used an impairment assessment that does not apply under the Commonwealth scheme, and it was "simply incorrect" that such an assessment was needed to move his claim forward.
The bigger problem, the tribunal found, was that he clearly knew he could seek a review and knew the deadline. Yet "he still did nothing to protect his position."
Lost rehab, fading memories
The delay also cost the bank. Before he had even lodged a claim, it approved eight psychology sessions and four GP reviews as early intervention, and it later referred him to a rehabilitation provider. That support stopped when the claim was rejected.
In April 2023, a psychiatrist who assessed him at the bank's request had expected his symptoms to improve with psychological therapy over the next six months. The tribunal noted he did not consistently receive it, and accepted that the bank had lost the chance to manage the claim and attempt rehabilitation.
His former manager left the bank in October 2025 and no longer had access to any documents about the worker. The tribunal said his memory would necessarily be worse, and his evidence "might well be important".
The worker's own loss was obvious: the chance to contest the rejection, and any compensation that might follow. But without an acceptable explanation for the delay, the tribunal said, he was the "author of his own harm" - a phrase it drew from an earlier Federal Court case.
Not a hopeless case, just a late one
The tribunal took issue with the bank's description of his prospects as "poor". The evidence was mixed on whether the vaccination directions and, potentially, a missed promotion caused his condition. Whether those actions were handled reasonably would need a forensic examination of the evidence. Neither side's prospects could be described as significantly better than "mixed".
It was not enough. The sheer length of the delay against a 30-day deadline, with no adequate explanation, "tips the scales heavily in favour of refusing to reconsider the decision to deny liability," the tribunal said. To outweigh that, other factors would have had to be "truly compelling".
The tribunal did not rule on whether he was entitled to compensation. It upheld the bank's refusal to reconsider.
For HR teams handling injury claims, the case shows how a worker's emails in a separate workplace dispute can end up as evidence of what they were capable of doing.
