Her resignation letter requested garden leave and LSL payout
An AusPost employee who quit over disputes about carer's leave was not forced out, the Fair Work Commission has found.
The worker, a strategic account manager based in Brisbane, had been with Australia Post for more than 10 years. She is the parent of a child with a disability and had an approved flexible work arrangement that let her work from home four days a week, commuting to the Brisbane office on Wednesdays. She lived on the Gold Coast.
The trouble started in January 2026. The worker applied for long service leave but was knocked back because she had not met the eligibility requirements. She then told her manager she would be taking carer's leave from late January to late February to support her son's transition to school.
That request ran into problems too. AusPost told her the application did not meet the evidence requirements under its personal leave policy and the enterprise agreement, and could not be approved. She was invited to resubmit with supporting evidence or apply for a different type of leave. The Commission found no evidence she did either.
Around the same time, her manager raised concerns she was falling behind on customer meetings. They discussed a plan and confirmed it by email.
Then, on February 16, 2026, the worker called her manager and said she had decided to resign. According to the manager's account - which the worker did not dispute - she said words to the effect that she needed to be at home to support her son and that resigning was a relief. When her manager asked if she wanted to talk it through first, she said she had discussed it with her family over the weekend and her mind was made up.
She followed up with a formal resignation letter that same day.
The letter was carefully worded. She described her son's school transition as "a pressing domestic necessity" and requested payout of pro-rata long service leave under the Long Service Leave (Commonwealth Employees) Act 1976. She offered to support a thorough handover and flagged she was open to an earlier departure date or garden leave.
During her 12-week notice period, the worker kept raising concerns about her leave entitlements. In early March 2026, she provided a medical certificate saying she was unfit for work. She stayed on paid personal leave for the rest of her notice period. Her last day was May 11, 2026.
She then filed a general protections claim with the Fair Work Commission, arguing she had been forced to resign. Under Australia's Fair Work Act, a resignation can count as a dismissal if the employer's conduct left the worker with no real choice but to quit. The worker said she experienced "escalating adverse action" tied to her responsibilities as a parent of a child with a disability - including that AusPost had rejected valid medical documentation, threatened to stop her pay, questioned her son's disability, denied carer's leave, and failed to offer alternative duties or support.
AusPost pushed back, saying the resignation was voluntary.
The Commission agreed. It found the evidence did not support the worker's claims. To the contrary, the decision noted that AusPost - and her manager in particular - had made "genuine attempts" to support her.
The Commission accepted the worker was disappointed by the carer's leave decision, but pointed out she had been given the chance to provide further evidence or apply for different leave. There was no evidence she pursued either option, or that she used AusPost's internal grievance processes.
The key finding: the worker had reasonable alternatives available when she resigned. She could have asked to extend or vary her flexible work arrangement. She could have applied for other leave. She could have explored a transfer to a different role or location. Given her long notice period, she could even have withdrawn her resignation. The Commission said it had no reason to believe AusPost would not have properly considered any of those options.
On that basis, the Commission found AusPost had not engaged in conduct intended to end the employment or that left the worker with no real choice but to resign. The application was dismissed on September 16, 2026, after being determined on the papers without a hearing.
For HR teams juggling flexible work and carer's leave, the practical takeaway sits in the process trail: offering alternatives, documenting conversations, and keeping the door open gave AusPost the foundation to defend a constructive dismissal claim.
