Fair Work Commission Takes Dim View of Worker’s Secret Recording

A service station manager’s “deliberate” decision to secretly record a disciplinary meeting after being told not to has been described by the nation’s workplace tribunal as a “serious breach of trust and confidence” and a “very serious matter.”

What happened

The manager was dismissed by BP on 25 October 2024 following allegations that she had breached its locked door policy by permitting employees she managed to allow members of the public into the store after 10pm.  The manager denied the allegations and made an unfair dismissal claim to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) in response. 

The claim was filed several days outside the 21-day time limit in which an unfair dismissal application must be made.  The FWC had to decide whether to extend the time for the claim to be made, requiring the manager to establish ‘exceptional circumstances’ had led to the delay. 

In the course of deciding whether the grant the manager the extension to file her claim, the FWC learned the manager had covertly recorded her disciplinary meeting on 25 October 2025, despite being directed by the employer not to make any recordings of the meeting.  The manager sought to admit a copy of the recording and a transcript of it into evidence in her case.  The FWC declined to allow the recording or transcript to be admitted into evidence given the recording was made in “direct contravention” of the employer’s direction that no recordings be made.

Far from assisting the manager’s claim, the existence of the recording led to the FWC deciding it weighed against the extension of time for the unfair dismissal claim to be made.  The manager’s conduct, in defying the direction not to record the meeting, amounted to a “significant breach of trust and confidence” such that the FWC reached a preliminary view that the manager had not been unfairly dismissed.  As the FWC must consider the merits of the unfair dismissal claim in deciding whether to extend the time for making the claim, this factor weighed against an extension.

Ultimately, the FWC was not persuaded there were exceptional circumstances for the delay in filing the claim and dismissed the manager’s application.

Harris v No. 1 Riverside Quay Proprietary Limited [2025] FWC 690