A "project" label and shaky funding could not keep this long-serving worker on rolling contracts

A Queensland tribunal has ruled that shaky funding and a "project" label are not enough to keep a busy worker on temporary contracts indefinitely.

That was the outcome on June 29, 2026, when the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission handed down its reasons in a public sector conversion appeal, overturning a department's refusal to make a long-serving employee permanent. The orders had been issued four days earlier, on June 25.

The worker had been employed on successive fixed-term contracts since August 2023 - more than two and a half years - in a senior dispute resolution role within the Department of Justice. He asked to be made permanent. The department said no, and he appealed.

Queensland's Public Sector Act 2022 makes permanent employment the default. An agency can keep someone on a temporary footing only where doing so is "not viable or appropriate," and it must review long-serving temporary staff for conversion. The department's refusal rested on funding: the role was tied to a time-limited "Reform and Demand Pressures Project," the money was set to run out on June 26, 2026, future funding was unapproved, and, it said, there was "no funded substantive position beyond" that date.

The Commission found the refusal was not fair and reasonable.

The tribunal accepted the demand was real and rising. The department's own internal emails, quoted in the decision, described...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMi4gFBVV95cUxOR2VfOG14WkpFRF85RFFDTFlN...