Court backs summary dismissal after disputed private vehicle reimbursement claims
Melbourne Water has won court backing for sacking a coordinator who “reverse‑engineered” vehicle reimbursements.
On 27 November 2025, Judge Forbes of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia upheld Melbourne Water Corporation’s decision to summarily dismiss Joshua Spiteri, a Works Coordinator at the Western Treatment Plant in Werribee, and ordered him to repay $12,000.
Spiteri worked at the 110-square-kilometre sewage treatment facility from 21 August 2021 until his dismissal on 26 February 2024. His job involved coordinating maintenance and planning, with work that included both office-based duties and travel to assets around the plant.
The dispute centred not on his performance, but on how he claimed for using his private Ford Ranger on site. Spiteri was not given a dedicated work vehicle and became frustrated about relying on pool vehicles. He complained about their availability, said he needed a vehicle to perform his duties and indicated he would accept an allowance for using his own car.
In mid-2022, Spiteri said he had a brief conversation with senior manager Craig Wills. According to Spiteri, Wills told him to work out his car expenses and claim them on his timesheet until Melbourne Water could “sort something out for him.” Wills denied that, saying he simply told Spiteri he could claim reimbursement via Melbourne Water’s existing process for kilometre reimbursement, using the Kronos system referred to in the internal “Private Vehicle Use – Kilometre Reimbursement Application.”
Spiteri then set up his own method. He calculated a weekly cost of owning and running the vehicle, including finance, fuel, registration, servicing, repairs, maintenance, depreciation and cleaning, and decided that “just over” 50 per cent of that total represented work use. He divided that figure by the cents-per-kilometre reimbursement rate, about $0.80, and used the result to create standard daily kilometre entries in Kronos.
Between June 2022 and December 2023, he routinely claimed 40–45 kilometres a day, then 85 kilometres, then 95 kilometres, with a single 170‑kilometre entry. He conceded he did not keep any record of the actual kilometres travelled and that he claimed a daily figure for every working day, including days he worked from home.
An organisation-wide review of private vehicle reimbursements in late 2023 identified Spiteri as having received significantly high reimbursements. Melbourne Water then compared his Kronos entries with swipe-in/swipe-out data and leave records. It concluded he had claimed kilometres on numerous dates when he had not accessed a Melbourne Water site at all.
Over roughly 18 months, Spiteri submitted claims for approximately 25,515 kilometres and was paid $20,618.05 in reimbursements. He told the court he was simply recovering work-related car expenses, acting on what he believed Wills had authorised. He also relied on invoices for repairs and detailing, and said he had incurred vehicle costs linked to site conditions.
Judge Forbes rejected that account. The court found that Spiteri “reverse engineered” his claims to produce a predictable and regular financial return, knowingly claimed reimbursement for travel not undertaken, including on days he was not at work, and greatly exaggerated the amount of on-site driving his role required.
The judge held that this conduct breached Spiteri’s implied duties of fidelity and good faith and was destructive of the confidence required between employer and employee. It was conduct that justified summary dismissal under clause 19.2 of his employment contract. His amended application was dismissed.
On Melbourne Water’s cross-claim, the court accepted that the corporation had overpaid Spiteri but noted there was no precise record of his legitimate business travel. Doing the best it could on imperfect evidence, the court assessed Melbourne Water’s loss at $12,000, rather than the full amount claimed, and ordered Spiteri to pay that sum in damages.
