Background

Swinburne undertook a thorough review of relevant payments which included information collection, complex analysis and assessment of time sheet records and pay data for relevant employees from 2017 to the end of 2023.

The impacted cohorts are confined to causal employees and are a result of discrepancies relating to misinterpretation and misapplication of clauses in relevant enterprise agreements and/or systems limitations, that have now been addressed.

Swinburne engaged external legal advice and professional accounting and financial services firm KPMG to assist and independently calculate the amounts owing to each impacted employee and to validate the results.

This ensures remediation is made proactively, fairly, reasonably and as a priority. Impacted employees will receive full back-pay of wages, together with interest and applicable superannuation.

Swinburne voluntarily self-reported this matter to the Fair Work Ombudsman and will work constructively with them. Other regulators have also been notified.

Swinburne is committed to ongoing compliance and we continue to review our systems, processes and payments to ensure continuous improvement.

The university has made several changes already to ensure these errors do not arise in the future and is undertaking further compliance and assurance steps to further ensure that all our staff are paid correctly at all times.