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A six-year wait for penalty payments by long-suffering Qantas ground crew who were illegally sacked by the airline is a step closer to ending after a judge referenced Adam and Eve\u2019s original sin to expedite compensation bogged down by lengthy delays.<\/p>\n
Justice Michael Lee, in Federal Court in Sydney on Thursday, said he will speed up payments for the sacked Qantas workers by decoupling $38 million in penalties from a larger $120 million scheme which will require more time to implement.<\/p>\n
The years-long, drawn-out process to determine compensation has frustrated many of the 1820 ground crew affected, leading one former employee \u2013 Ryan Perrett \u2013 to request Justice Lee remove the administrators, law firm Maurice Blackburn, from the case.<\/p>\n
Lee, famous for his erudition, told Perrett: \u201cI must say to you frankly, my attitude towards that, Mr Perrett, is that since the third chapter of Genesis we\u2019ve all been subject to the fall and we all make mistakes, and people of goodwill can make mistakes and they frankly admitted a mistake.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to recognise that, with the benefit of hindsight, people learn from these things.\u201d<\/p>\n
The third chapter of Genesis in the Bible tells the story of original sin in the Garden of Eden, where a snake tempts Eve to eat forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Eve shares it with Adam.<\/p>\n
The case has resulted in the former Qantas workers waiting years for compensation; Lee in 2025 ruled that their sacking in 2020 by Qantas, effective in 2021, was illegal. In addition to the $120 million in compensation Qantas agreed to pay, Lee imposed a separate $90 million penalty on the airline, of which $50 million was paid to the Transport Workers\u2019 Union, which brought the case.<\/p>\n
Delays in processing compensation before the July deadline prompted Maurice Blackburn last week to seek an extension until October. The law firm sought the extension just 10 days before the deadline, a development that infuriated former Qantas employees like Perrett.<\/p>\n
The legal firm apologised to the court for the delay.<\/p>\n
Underscoring the frustration of Qantas\u2019 former employees is the lack of transparency in the compensation process, an issue the judge acknowledged. Many of the former baggage handlers have struggled to find full employment since being sacked.<\/p>\n
Perrett told the court he hadn\u2019t \u201creceived any communication from the TWU since they won the $50 million\u201d, noting the first word they heard from the TWU since Lee\u2019s 2025 ruling awarding the penalty was in July, days before the compensation scheme was scheduled to be completed.<\/p>\n
Lee said he accepted as \u201centirely genuine\u201d the apology from Maurice Blackburn for how it informed him of the delays caused by a number of independent medical examinations that didn\u2019t satisfy the requirements of the law firm for deciding compensation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can understand workers feeling a sense of great frustration that the Transport Workers\u2019 Union got money quicksticks and yet the workers have not got any money for this lengthy period,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n
Lawyer for Maurice Blackburn Adam Hochroth SC explained the delay arose after an independent medical examiner employed to evaluate the health of sacked workers produced 111 reports \u201cwhich the administrator didn\u2019t consider\u201d were at a level required to determine compensation.<\/p>\n