Nine committee members also face personal fines after years of ignored warnings
For nearly 15 years, a shooting club in southern Queensland paid its manager $250 a week.
The Gold Coast Pistol Club has now been ordered to pay $476,100 in penalties after the Federal Circuit and Family Court found it systematically underpaid the worker's wages, superannuation, and leave entitlements across nearly six years of the claim period. Nine members of the club's governing committee were also hit with personal penalties totalling more than $52,000 for their part in the breaches.
The penalties were handed down on September 30, 2026.
The worker, who turned 80 during the proceedings, first joined the club as a member in 1981 and began part-time bookkeeping in November 2005. By mid-2006, she had stepped into the role of club manager, running the day-to-day operations of the Ashmore facility. She moved into a caretaker's cottage on the club's grounds in 2007, paying $100 a week in rent.
Her responsibilities were anything but part-time. She managed the club's finances, processed memberships, supervised volunteers, trained junior shooters, handled weapons licensing paperwork, ran stocktakes, attended every committee meeting, and was the responsible person for the liquor licence. The club's own information book described her as the person members would "most likely have the most to do with on a day to day basis."
For all of that, she received $250 a week. No pay slips. No superannuation at the...
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