The Fair Work Ombudsman has ordered UNSW to backpay 33,069 current and former employees a total of about 32.7 million Australian dollars, covering underpayments from 2014 to 2023 across casual academics and some professional staff.

The FWO notes extensive record-keeping failures at UNSW that significantly hindered the investigation.

UNSW has broadened its remediation, conducting a wide review of all cohorts, issuing multiple repayments, and creating a confidential advocacy scheme to support affected staff, while acknowledging past record-keeping failures and implementing corrective measures for future compliance.

The FWO described UNSW’s initial handling of record-keeping as poor but recognized the university’s commitment to remediation, with leadership apologizing to affected staff and stressing ongoing corrective efforts.

The issue began after a 2018 FWO notice prompted help for a casual academic in UNSW’s business school; the university self-reported the issue in 2020, triggering a formal investigation.

UNSW is also required to make a contrition payment of 500,000 Australian dollars to Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue.

The underpayments affected staff across academic tasks such as lectures, tutorials, and exam supervision, as well as non-academic roles, with the FWO finding incorrect pay rates and failures to meet minimum wage standards.

UNSW’s self-report to the FWO in 2020 prompted the formal investigation into the underpayments.

The underpayments stemmed from incorrect pay rates and were accompanied by breaches of record-keeping and payslip requirements.

The development comes as UNSW was named Australia’s top university in the QS World University Rankings.

UNSW is among several Australian universities—alongside Charles Darwin University, Monash University, and The University of Sydney—entering backpay undertakings with the FWO.