University of Adelaide admits to $1.25m underpayment of 838 staff

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The University of Adelaide has admitted to underpaying more than 800 staff about 1-point-2-5 million dollars over the last eight years. While the university says it's working to backpay workers, their union warns the amount owed to staff could rise as an audit continues.

Transcript

00:00Unfortunate and regrettable. That's how the University of Adelaide has described

00:07revelations it underpaid more than 830 casual workers between March 2017 and May 2025.

00:16$1.25 million is owed to current and former academic staff. Broken down, that equates

00:22to an average of almost $1,500 per affected staff member.

00:28In an email to staff, University Vice-Chancellor Peter Hoy said the staff members were not

00:33paid the higher rates they were entitled to under the current Enterprise Agreement and

00:38or predecessor agreements. He said while the error affected less than 0.1 per cent of payments

00:43over the eight years, the University still deeply regrets that it occurred. The error

00:49was uncovered when the University audited its accounts in response to a spate of underpayment

00:54cases at universities across the country. Professor Hoy says the underpayments were a system breakdown.

01:01I have seen absolutely no cases of people knowingly underpaying their colleagues. The cause of it

01:10is the complexity of the arrangement we have in our industrial instruments.

01:17Education Union says more could be uncovered as the audit progresses.

01:21That could well be the tip of an iceberg because it's only going after certain elements of compliance

01:27with the Enterprise Agreement. So there could be more.

01:31The University says it's contacted affected staff and has started repaying them.

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