Johnson v State of Queensland

Crown Law was recently successful in the matter ofJohnson
v State of Queensland (Department of Justice and Attorney-General) [2015]
QIRC 122.

In that case, a Correctional Services Officer (CSO) was dismissed from employment with the State Government in late 2014 for breaching the Code of Conduct for the Queensland Public Service and the department’s ICT policies and procedures.

In particular, the reasons for the CSO’s dismissal included:

• on two separate occasions, the employee released confidential information as defined under the Correctional Services Act 2006 to her former political party
• the employee made excessive use of departmental ICT services
• the employee inappropriately forwarded emails and documents meant for other Correctional Services staff to her former political party
• the employee forwarded an email that contained offensive material.

The Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) held that while the other allegations were not sufficient to justify termination, the release of confidential information by the employee “led to the loss of the trust and confidence required by the employer to continue to employ her in the capacity of CSO, particularly when she would have had continued exposure to similar types of information on a day-to-day basis”.

The QIRC also referred to the employee’s dishonesty during the proceedings, which included, but not limited to:

• denial of Code of Conduct training
• claims that the employee’s lawyers (without instructions) omitted her prior disciplinary history in the response to the employer.

The QIRC noted that these untruths were not harmless ‘white lies’ but went to matters of significance in the proceedings.