Raghib v Stantec Australia Pty Ltd (Final hearing)

• Jurisdiction: Australia Federal only
• Court: Federal Court (Australia)
• Judgment Date: 15 September 2026
• Neutral Citation: [2026] FCA 1354
• Date: 15 September 2026

Federal Court of Australia

Raghib v Stantec Australia Pty Ltd (Final hearing) [2026] FCA 1354

ORDERS

VID 71 of 2026
BETWEEN:	FIRAS RAGHIB Applicant
AND:	STANTEC AUSTRALIA PTY LTD First Respondent FAIR WORK COMMISSION Second Respondent

order made by:	WHEELAHAN J
DATE OF ORDER:	15 September 2026

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1. The application be dismissed.

2. By 4.00 pm on 17 September 2026 the first respondent file and serve:

(a) a submission on costs limited to two pages; and

(b) any affidavit material in support.

3. By 4.00 pm on 21 September 2026 the applicant file and serve:

(a) a submission on costs limited to two pages; and

(b) any affidavit material in response.

4. Submissions shall be prepared in 12 pt font and 1.5 line spacing.

5. The question of costs of the proceeding be listed for hearing on 24 September 2026 at 2.15 pm.

Note: Entry of orders is dealt with in Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

WHEELAHAN J:

1 The applicant seeks judicial review of two decisions of the Fair Work Commission. The first decision is the primary decision of a Deputy President who dismissed the applicant’s application for remedies under Part 3-2 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) (FW Act) in relation to a claimed unfair dismissal from employment: Raghib v Stantec Australia Pty Ltd [2025] FWC 2335 (PD). The second decision is that of the Full Bench which refused permission to appeal the primary decision: Raghib v Stantec Australia Pty Ltd [2025] FWCFB 218 (FB).

2 The applicant is self-represented, as he was before the Commission. He is vision impaired and appeared before the Court remotely with the assistance of special technology, which included large screens. At the hearing, the applicant also confirmed that he had used artificial intelligence, or AI, in the preparation of documents before the Court, stating that he used it to check grammar mostly. The applicant requested that all hearings in this matter commence at midday to give his support workers time to set up the technology for him. And at the applicant’s request I permitted him to submit a document shortly before the hearing outlining his oral submissions.

Background

3 The applicant was employed by the first respondent (Stantec) in the position of “Senior Human Resources Business Partner Vic/SA”. On 20 March 2025, Stantec summarily dismissed the applicant from employment on the ground of serious misconduct. At first instance, the Commission dismissed the applicant’s application under Part 3-2 of the FW Act, holding that the applicant had engaged in dishonest conduct. While the Commission held that there had been some procedural deficiencies relating to the applicant’s dismissal, it held that those deficiencies were comfortably outweighed by the gravity of the applicant’s serious misconduct with the result that the Commission was satisfied that the dismissal of the applicant was not harsh, unjust, or unreasonable.

4 As to the applicant’s appeal to the Full Bench of the Commission, under s 400(1) of the FW Act the power to grant leave to appeal a decision under Part 3-2 is conditioned on the Full Bench being satisfied that it is in the public interest to do so. Further, under s 400(2) an appeal from a decision under Part 3-2 on a question of fact can be made only on the ground that the decision involved a significant error of fact. With the consent of the parties, the Full Bench determined the application for permission to appeal on the papers. The Full Bench received detailed written submissions from both parties which amounted to full argument on the question whether permission to appeal should be given. The Full Bench held that the applicant’s proposed grounds of appeal did not disclose any arguable case of error and that it was not in the public interest to grant permission to appeal and therefore permission to appeal was refused.

The Commission’s findings at first instance

5 In relation to the threshold matters going to the Commission’s jurisdiction, the Deputy President found that the applicant’s employment was terminated at the initiative of Stantec and that he was therefore “dismissed” within s 386(1) of the FW Act: PD [65]–[66]. He was satisfied that the application was made within time, that Stantec, which had approximately 2,200 employees, was not a small business, that the applicant had over three years’ service being more than the minimum employment period of six months, that the applicant’s salary of approximately $157,743 was below the high-income threshold, and that the dismissal was not a genuine redundancy: PD [68]–[69].

6 The Deputy President made credit findings in relation to the witnesses who gave evidence. As to two witnesses called by Stantec, Dr Ward and Ms Winsbury, the Deputy President found that they were candid, forthright and consistent; that Dr Ward was “clear but not dogmatic”; and that Ms Winsbury “remained resolute” and “came across as a witness of credit”: PD [71].

7 In relation to the applicant, the Deputy President found him to be an unimpressive witness who was reluctant to make concessions, who gave evidence that “appeared to be made up ‘on the fly’”, who made unsubstantiated and “at times misogynistic” claims, and who persisted in making “patently false claims”. The Deputy President concluded that the applicant was not a witness of credit and preferred Stantec’s witnesses where there was conflict: PD [72]–[73]. The Deputy President later went further and stated that he regarded the applicant to be dishonest and untrustworthy in his evidence: PD [78].

8 Stantec relied on three allegations of misconduct to justify the summary dismissal of the applicant. The Deputy President directed himself to apply the Briginshaw standard to any findings of misconduct: Briginshaw v Briginshaw (1938) 60 CLR 336. He found that the first allegation was not substantiated but that the second and third allegations were established.

9 The first allegation was that the applicant engaged in unrelenting coercive control and predatory sexual behaviour towards multiple young women in the workplace who either reported to him (in the case of Ms Winsbury) or who correctly regarded him as in a position of authority in his senior position in the human resources team (in the case of Complainant 3). The Deputy President held that this allegation was not established because Stantec adduced no direct evidence from the complainants to support the ground: PD [77]–[78].

10 The second allegation relied on by Stantec was that the applicant attempted to contact Complainant 3 by phone on 11 March 2025 after he became aware on 3 March 2025 of the allegations made by Complainant 3 about the applicant’s conduct towards her at Stantec’s 2023 Christmas party. The allegations made by Complainant 3 were summarised by the Deputy President at PD [23] and included inappropriate conversation with and physical contact of Complainant 3. At the time the applicant attempted to contact Complainant 3, he had been absent from work for a prolonged period, relying on medical certificates stating that he was unfit for work: PD [20].

11 The applicant admitted attempting to call Complainant 3 on 11 March 2025, conceded that his conduct in doing so was inappropriate, but sought to justify it. The Deputy President rejected the applicant’s explanations, finding it “almost inconceivable” that a senior HR practitioner would not appreciate the confidentiality obligations attaching to a complaint, holding that the conduct breached the applicant’s obligation to respect confidentiality and that it constituted misconduct: PD [80].

12 As to the third allegation, the applicant had claimed to Stantec, and continued to maintain at the hearing before the Commission, that on 1 July 2024 he received a text message to his personal mobile phone sent by Ms Winsbury. The terms of the text were set out at PD [27] —

Hi Firas, I just wanted to reach out to you and let you know how sorry I am about all the trouble you went through at Stantec for what it’s worth. I was talked into making the complaint in return for my role being confirmed at stantec and I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I am no longer there and I’ve been feeling bad about the whole thing and just wanted to let you know that good luck with everything. All the best [fingers cross[ed] emoji x 2]

13 The applicant relied on the alleged text at a number of stages during the course of his disputation with Stantec, including in an earlier general protections application dated 12 August 2024 that the applicant filed with the Commission. In that application the applicant relied on the alleged text to support a claim that Ms Winsbury had been coerced into fabricating allegations against him.

14 Ms Winsbury gave evidence, which the Deputy President accepted, denying that she sent the text message to the applicant. At PD [81]–[82] the Deputy President held that the applicant’s claim that Ms Winsbury sent the text to him was “a complete fiction”, and that the applicant’s narrative was “completely implausible” and “deliberately false”. The Deputy President stated at PD [81] that the applicant’s allegation that he received the text was —

a cynical fabrication designed by the Applicant to discredit and undermine Ms Winsbury, the allegations made by her and the disciplinary process undertaken by the Respondent in response to those allegations.

15 A key finding made by the Deputy President was that the applicant had added his own work number to Ms Winsbury’s contact details on his personal phone so that a text message from his work phone would appear without closer scrutiny to have been sent by Ms Winsbury along with the previous messages that he had exchanged with Ms Winsbury: PD [86]–[87], [93]. The applicant had advanced a claim that he left his work phone in a cabinet at Stantec’s office and that Ms Winsbury was using the applicant’s work phone. The Deputy President held that this claim was concocted: PD [89]. From PD [84] to [92] the Deputy President set out...