Four separate findings, one care plan, and a company that got the process right
A disability support worker sacked over her conduct with a vulnerable client has lost her bid to have the dismissal overturned.
The Fair Work Commission ruled on September 7, 2026 that home-care provider Home Caring Pty Ltd had a valid reason to dismiss the worker, and that it ran a fair process. Commissioner Walkaden dismissed her unfair dismissal application in full.
The worker had supported a man in his late 40s with significant disabilities, including a physical disability following a stroke that left him unable to walk or keep his balance. The company dismissed her on two grounds: an inappropriate, flirtatious relationship with the client, which it treated as a breach of the NDIS Code of Conduct, and doing work outside her role by shaving the client against his care plan.
She denied all of it. The worker said she kept appropriate professional boundaries at all times and had not engaged in any inappropriate, sexual, unsafe or unprofessional conduct.
The Commission did not accept her account. It found she had exchanged flirtatious, deeply personal text messages with the client. The messages, saved in his phone under her name, were in Vietnamese and put before the Commission in a certified translation. The Commission found they went well beyond work.
It also found that on the afternoon of December 2, 2025 the worker came in early, held the client's hand, sang to him and sat close to his bedside. A support worker gave evidence of that conduct, and the Commissioner accepted it as flirtatious.
The most serious finding concerned the client being shaved in his pubic region on the evening of December 2. The worker admitted shaving his face but denied the intimate shaving. The client and his father both told the Commission the father had done it. The Commissioner did not accept that evidence, finding the client's account was affected by an ongoing relationship with the worker, and the father's by a well-meaning wish to help her. A support worker gave evidence that the following morning the client's private parts had been completely shaved, and that the cloth normally used to clean his face was covered in hair.
A human resources officer who investigated the allegations gave evidence that when she asked the worker directly whether she had shaved the client in the personal area, the worker denied it, then minutes later said she had shaved him for safety reasons. The Commissioner treated that shift in account as reinforcing her finding.
For HR practitioners, the instructive part is how the reasons stacked up. The Commissioner made four separate findings against the worker and held that each, on its own, was a valid reason for dismissal: the text messages, the bedside conduct, the intimate shaving, and shaving the client's face. Each was inconsistent with the NDIS Code of Conduct, the client's care plan, or both. The care plan was explicit - shaving was a task for family, not support workers.
Process is where employers often come unstuck, and this one did not. The Commissioner found the worker was told the reasons in writing on December 8, 2025, given a meeting on December 12 with a Vietnamese interpreter to respond, and invited to an outcome meeting on December 22 where she could bring a support person. Her dismissal was confirmed there. The Commissioner recorded that she had “no criticisms of the investigation carried out by the Respondent.”
The worker argued the dismissal was harsh, pointing to lost income, reputational damage and emotional stress. The Commissioner treated those as consequences of the worker's own misconduct, and noted the employment had run only about 16 months.
The company had 225 staff and dedicated HR specialists at the time. The Commission found no fault with the procedure it followed. On the substance and the process alike, the dismissal stood.
