‘Certain conduct was inappropriate’: Dept confirms police investigating toxic workplace allegations involving death of IT worker
NT Police are investigating toxic workplace allegations linked to the Acacia IT system, which family
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Tip of the iceberg stuff…
Yup
This case is a clear message to all Public Servants!
-Your bosses are not here to complete work, their here to pocket as much pay as possible.
-Your here to work while the most incompetent, yet DNA approved, managers pocket money they will never earn elsewhere in Australia!
-Nobody will ever be held to account for any wrongs, if their parents where executives at the Department!
-Nobody in the NTPS will ever get a fair investigation. Nobody in the NTPS where deluded to think this investogation would go anywhere!
-The permanent furniture look after each other.
This is a sordid story involving favours owed decades ago.
Yup
Good to see this is being investigated by the SME.
Inquest into the death of Paula Michele Schubert [2018] NTLC 20 (25 July 2018)
https://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/nt/NTLC/2018/20.html
“105. Her employer was aware of those issues in 2014 and took appropriate action to identify how Paula could be supported and in her return to the workplace.
In 2016 her employer took a different course.
They showed no empathy and no awareness of appropriate managerial practice. Rather they sought to obtain the agreement of Paula to a temporary demotion.
106. There might be a tendency to wonder how a scheme to demote an employee because of mental health issues could operate in a modern government department. The HR unit should operate to prevent such actions. However, far from counselling against the scheme to demote Paula, HR supported the managers in that endeavour. That is a damning indictment on the organisation.
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111. That the Chief Executive Officer of the Department of Territory Families do all things required to ensure the managers and HR personnel within the Department are aware of their responsibilities towards employees and in particular to refrain from bullying behaviour.”
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The Australian newspaper
· July 26, 2018
A woman who worked for 32 years for the Northern Territory’s child protection agency was demoted by managers and humiliated in front of colleagues shortly before she hanged herself alone in a bedroom.
The woman, Paula Schubert, suffered mental health issues towards the end of her career. Her psychiatrist told a coronial inquest that an incident in which a supervisor told her to “show everyone” a doodle she had made during a meeting was likely a “critical event” in her death.
“To expose somebody who was already under a degree of stress … to then have effectively a public humiliation in the workplace, given the fear that she would lose her job, that’s critical,” psychiatrist David Chapman told the inquest.
Schubert was suffering an “anxiety episode” and “in a zombie-like state” at the time. The supervisor, Patricia Butler, told the inquest humiliating Schubert had been a “joke”, but the Coroner, Greg Cavanagh, said it was still shocking.
He wrote in his findings, handed down yesterday, that Territory Families managers had taken Schubert into a room, at short notice and with no support person present, and pushed her to accept a pay cut.
Ms Butler later joked about the pay cut by saying Schubert would need to “bring a plunger to work” instead of buying coffee, Mr Cavanagh said.
He found Territory Families “showed no empathy and no awareness of appropriate managerial practices”, and the agency’s human resources department should have intervened to prevent Schubert being demoted, which breached anti-discrimination laws.
“Far from counselling against the scheme to demote Paula, HR supported the managers in that endeavour,” Mr Cavanagh wrote. “That is a damning indictment on the organisation.”
Territory Families engaged an external consultant to “review the support or lack thereof” given to Schubert. The review recommended better training and staff support.
A spokeswoman last night said two employees had since resigned and one was on extended leave.
“At Territory Families, we value a safe and nurturing work environment and we understand and respect that staff often work in stressful situations,” the spokeswoman said.
“Significant work has been undertaken to improve initiatives to support staff health and wellbeing.
“Paula Schubert’s death remains a profound tragedy.”
Mr Cavanagh also criticised Top End Health Service for failing to ensure Schubert received adequate ongoing care after she was discharged from a mental health facility. He said her treatment, including calling meetings at short notice, teasing her about her pay cut and humiliating her in front of colleagues, was unreasonable.
Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14
Paula Schubert did not die because of one moment.
She died because a system failed her at every level — managers, HR, executives, the CEO, the Public Service Commissioner, and the ministers responsible.
The Coroner’s findings show a pattern of humiliation, unsafe management practices, and HR‑enabled bullying.
No criminal action was taken.
No one was held personally accountable.
A preventable death occurred inside a government department, and the blood sits across many hands — not by legal definition of murder, but by moral responsibility for a woman who was pushed past breaking point.
Thank you Lucio . . . for your homework.
And for a communal hope that Government leadership and values can no longer hide behind either pretence or absence of leadership. Eventuating, too often in public servant withdrawal, defeat.