The bar was a 200-metre walk from the office - and that proximity shaped the ruling
Australia’s Fair Work Commission has upheld the sacking of a worker who struck a colleague in the head after a work Christmas party.
In a decision on August 24, 2026, the Commission dismissed the worker’s unfair dismissal claim, finding his employer - the Victorian public sector arts agency Arts Centre Melbourne - had a good reason to let him go and had handled the process fairly.
The night started at the agency’s December 2024 Christmas party, attended by around 600 staff. After it wrapped up, groups of workers - about 20 in all - walked roughly 200 metres down the road to a nearby bar. The worker, a building maintenance officer, ended up in the smoking area with a colleague from another part of the organisation. The two had never met.
After an exchange of words, the worker struck the colleague to the head. The colleague fell into a gas heater and then to the ground. The worker left the venue.
The employer suspended him the next day, investigated, and dismissed him for serious misconduct on December 19, 2024. He challenged the decision, arguing the incident happened out of hours and off-site, that he was provoked, and that alcohol served at the party played a part. The Commission was not persuaded on any of those points.
The central question was whether something that happened after hours, away from work, was tied closely enough to the job to justify dismissal. The Commission found that it...
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