A senior Tasmanian public servant found to have shown a junior colleague a sex doll website has lost a legal bid to overturn misconduct findings against him.
The man, who remained anonymous in a Tasmanian Industrial Commission decision published last week, holds a senior management role in a state government department.
The department’s secretary accepted an investigator’s findings, including that he began an “inappropriate conversation” about sex dolls with a colleague in his office and showed them a sex doll website.
The decision notes the investigator found it “was not suggested that there was anything nefarious, nor that there was malintent on the applicant’s part”
The man was also found to have made “inappropriate comments” to another colleague about his sex life and discussed concerns about other staff members’ performance or behaviour.
Other findings included that he disclosed “personal, including psychiatric, medical information about colleagues to others”.
The secretary found three allegations or parts of them proven and determined he breached the State Service Code of Conduct, before proposing to terminate his employment.
The man admitted some of the conduct but disputed that it breached the code and argued the investigation was unfair.
He said the information about colleagues was not confidential because he heard it through “scuttlebutt on the floor”.
Commissioner Samuel Thompson found there was enough evidence to show that was not how the man learned it, noting his account had been “equivocal”.
He also ruled gossip “would not shed the information of its confidentiality”.
Thompson found the secretary had made “the correct and preferable decision” and refused the application.
He ruled the commission could not yet review the proposed sacking because no final decision had been made.
The disciplinary process, paused during the case, can now resume.
If the man is sacked, he can challenge it through an unfair dismissal claim.
