The board skipped warnings and a chance to respond - and it cost them a finding, not cash
A Tasmanian charity dismissed its managing director unfairly - yet the Fair Work Commission ordered it to pay nothing at all.
In a decision handed down on July 8, 2026, the Commission found the National Trust of Australia (Tasmania) dismissed its managing director both unjustly and unreasonably. Even so, it ordered no remedy. The case is a sharp reminder for HR that a strong outcome and a good process are two different things.
The Trust is a small not-for-profit with seven staff and a volunteer board. In early 2025 it decided not to renew the managing director's two-year contract, which was set to end on March 6, 2025. That call was the charity's to make. How it handled the exit was where things went wrong.
On January 30, 2025, the Board Chair and Deputy Chair met the managing director and worked from a prepared script. They told him there would be no new contract, gave him an "end of employment" letter, suspended him immediately, and shut off his email and IT access within about half an hour. He was asked to pack up and go. The Trust later accepted this amounted to a dismissal, not a contract simply expiring.
On whether there was a valid reason, the ruling is instructive. The Trust said the managing director lacked financial literacy and had a poor relationship with the board. But it did not put the underlying financial records before the Commission, so the capability claim could not...
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