Central Queensland University (CQUniversity) will back-pay a total of more than $1.3 million, including interest and superannuation, to more than 1000 underpaid employees, after executing an Enforceable Undertaking (EU) with the Fair Work Ombudsman.
The university has already back paid more than $1.2 million to 875 current and former employees, including vulnerable workers.
As of 29 May 2026, 163 employees were yet to be back paid over $96,300, including interest and superannuation.
The university has 13 campuses across Australia, delivering on-campus and online education. Most campuses are in Queensland – Brisbane, Bundaberg, Emerald, Mackay, Rockhampton, Townsville, Cairns and Gladstone – but there are campuses in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, plus regional study hubs.
The underpayments relate to a range of entitlements under the university’s 2012, 2017 and 2023 enterprise agreements, including base salary rates; leave entitlements and leave loading; public holiday entitlements; overtime; academic promotion and progression entitlements; and casual minimum engagement.
The affected employees include academic staff, vocational education and training educators, professional staff and student residential advisors, working in a range of casual, fixed term and continuing full-time and part-time roles. Visa holders and young workers were among the underpaid employees.
Underpayments to individual staff ranged from less than $1 to $63,350, excluding interest and superannuation.
The university is continuing its compliance review and further underpaid employees are likely to be identified.
The university began reviewing its compliance with workplace laws in early 2023, prompted by broader compliance activity across the universities’ sector after the FWO had earlier communicated its compliance concerns to universities nationwide.
CQUniversity self-reported its underpayment issues to the regulator in April 2023.
Under the EU, CQUniversity has undertaken to address its compliance issues, which it says were caused by incorrect configuration of its payroll system; over-reliance on manual processes; staff turnover and staff errors.
The university has also committed to an initial contrition payment of $30,000, and a further contrition payment of the lower of either one per cent of any additional underpayments identified or $100,000.
The contrition payment will be paid to the Cleaning Accountability Framework. The CAF is an independent not-for-profit organisation which aims to improve conditions and standards in property cleaning services.
Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said the Enforceable Undertaking reflects the regulator’s long-running focus on improving compliance in the university sector.
“CQUniversity deserves credit for engaging cooperatively with us, committing resources to identify and rectify underpayments, and strengthening its systems,” Ms Booth said.
“Improving workplace compliance in the university sector has been an extended priority for the Fair Work Ombudsman, and we’ve made important progress nationally including through Enforceable Undertakings like this one. We expect employers to take sustained and proactive steps to ensure staff receive their full lawful entitlements.”
The EU commits CQUniversity to completing its remediation program, including calculating and rectifying all outstanding underpayments, with interest and superannuation.
On top of this, the measures CQUniversity must undertake to ensure future compliance with workplace laws include:
- establishing a dedicated wage integrity project team and governance framework
- improving payroll controls and systems
- engaging internal and external auditors to review payroll configuration
- increasing payroll and compliance resourcing
- communicating directly with affected employees and unions about remediation.
Improving workplace compliance in the university sector has been a priority for the Fair Work Ombudsman since 2022, with 13 other universities entering into Enforceable Undertakings to address systemic issues.
The FWO has also secured court penalties against two universities.
