UNSW has been fined $213,120 after a court found it failed for years to keep basic pay records for dozens of casual academics.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court ruled on January 14, 2026, that the university’s record-keeping failures affected 63 staff members and prevented the Fair Work Ombudsman from properly investigating underpayment claims. Warnings issued in 2018 went unaddressed, with action only taken once legal proceedings began in 2023.
UNSW later admitted it had no reliable records of hours worked, casual loadings, or payslip details. Judge Obradovic said the breaches were entrenched and long-running, making it difficult to calculate millions of dollars that staff may still be owed.
Five-Year Record-Keeping Collapse
For five years, UNSW’s Business School failed to keep basic records of hours worked by its casual staff, leaving regulators unable to confirm how much money they were owed.
Between 2017 and 2022, the school did not track hours, casual loading entitlements, or proper payslip details, even after the Fair Work Ombudsman issued a notice in 2018 following a staff complaint. An investigation in 2020 prompted the university to acknowledge underpayments, but missing timesheets meant inspectors could not verify what was owed, an amount estimated in the millions.
Even compulsory meetings were not recorded as paid work. The failures have added to growing concerns about underpayment across universities, as the Fair Work Ombudsman intensifies scrutiny of the sector.
Court Slams Delayed Accountability
Warnings sent to UNSW’s senior management in 2018 failed to prompt quick action, with the court finding no proper rollout of timesheets and no voluntary disclosure of breaches.
Although the judge stopped short of calling the conduct deliberate, the failures showed that compliance was not treated as a priority. Poor record-keeping, the court said, led to “thousands of failures” and allowed wage underpayments to slip through unnoticed.
The Fair Work Ombudsman’s Anna Booth said the regulator had little choice but to take the university to court after repeated attempts to secure fixes went nowhere.
Broader Lessons for Institutions
UNSW has started paying staff what it says they are owed, but problems with missing employment records have not been fully resolved.
The academics’ union said the court’s decision should serve as a warning to universities nationwide. As regulators ramp up audits across the higher education sector, the case highlights how basic payroll and time-tracking systems could prevent costly penalties and long-term damage to institutional reputations.
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