A performance plan, a disputed monitoring rate, and a cultural safety claim under scrutiny
A worker who consented to the end of her job partway through a performance plan has had her unfair dismissal claim rejected.
The Fair Work Commission dismissed the application on July 17, 2026, finding the government agency had a valid reason to end her employment and had given her a fair process.
The worker joined Services Australia in September 2023 through an Indigenous Apprenticeship Program, taking calls in a team that helps students with payments such as Youth Allowance and Austudy. Over about 12 months, concerns were raised that her performance was not meeting the standard.
The agency worked through its enterprise agreement one stage at a time - an informal support plan, then a formal support plan, and finally a formal performance assessment, or FPA. The FPA was set to run eight weeks, extended by any leave taken. She was told where it could lead: reassignment, a reduction in classification, or termination.
Before it finished, she took a different route. A clause in the agreement lets an employee on an FPA consent to termination and receive a lump sum for the balance of the assessment period. In an email, she wrote that she had "no other alternative than to consent to termination," describing it as "another example of systemic injustice that I as an Aboriginal women who has a Degree a working history and still not good enough for the Australian Government has to live with everyday." Her employment ended in October 2025.
An early question was whether this even counted as a dismissal. The agency argued the employment had ended at the worker's own initiative but accepted, as a government party expected to act fairly in litigation, that placing her on an FPA carried an implied offer to terminate that she took up by consenting. On that basis the Commission found she had been dismissed at the employer's initiative, and then turned to whether that dismissal was harsh, unjust or unreasonable.
The worker argued she had been left with no real choice. The Commission was not persuaded. It found she could have raised a dispute, remained absent and sought workers' compensation, or escalated her concerns to senior management or human resources, and that her contemporaneous emails did not support the claim that termination was her only option.
The monitoring dispute sat at the centre of the case. During her FPA, her calls were reviewed at five per week, against two per month for staff who were not on a plan. She characterised this as a "900% increase" and said it was unreasonable. The Commission disagreed, noting she had a target of about 258 calls a month, so reviewing roughly 22 of them amounted to around 8.5% of her work, and that she had agreed to the five-per-week figure with a previous team leader.
The 95% quality-of-service target also held up. The Commission accepted evidence that everyone in the relevant division is expected to meet 95%, and that all staff have their work fully checked when they are new to a task or on an FPA, with checks easing as they become proficient.
The worker also said she had not been given sufficient cultural safety. The Commission heard that a manager who identifies as a First Nations man had led the agency's Indigenous Employment Strategies Team, that cultural supports and Indigenous committee meetings were available, and that there was no record of the worker requesting supports she did not receive. On the evidence, the Commission was not satisfied she had been discriminated against on the basis of her race, or that her cultural safety had not been given appropriate consideration.
Weighing all of these matters, the Commission concluded the dismissal was not harsh, unjust or unreasonable and dismissed the application. For HR, the practical takeaway is the paper trail: warnings across three stages, a plan the worker signed, a documented chance to respond, and a monitoring rate the Commission found reasonable.
