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...
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