ComCare has charged Services Australia with breaches of s.19 (primary duty of care) and s.32 (failure to comply with health and safety duty) of the Commonwealth Work Health and Safety Act 2011 in response to its investigation into the stabbing attack of an employee.
In March 2023 a customer at the Airport West Centrelink office was asked to leave the building. Joeanne Cassar, a team leader who had worked for Services Australia for 37 years, then locked the doors and initiated a screening process for each entering customer in order to protect her staff. She was instructed to re-open the doors, and shortly afterwards the customer returned and stabbed Ms Cassar in the back causing serious permanent injuries.
The incident highlighted the vulnerability of frontline workers and the risks of work-related violence they are exposed to every day and prompted the Federal Government to launch a Services Australia security risk management review which delivered 44 recommendations.
The Government committed to implementing all recommendations from the review and provided $46.9 million in 2023-24 and an additional $314.1 million in the 2024-25 budget to improve safety and security at Services Australia's service centres. Laws were also introduced to enable Commonwealth workplaces to apply to a court to make protection orders against persons who harm or threaten to cause harm to their staff, to increase the maximum penalty for the offence of causing harm to a Federal frontline public service worker from 10 years of imprisonment to 13 years, and increase the maximum penalty for conduct that threatens harm from seven to nine years in jail.
The ComCare charge against Services Australia is a Category 2 criminal offence under the WHS Act and carries a maximum penalty of $1.5 million.
Read more: ComCare - Government agency charged after worker assault