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For every story told there are probably 10 or more than remain untold. We encourage you to contact us and provide us with an account of your own personal experiences.
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Our email address is: victimsofcsiro@gmail.com or you can leave us a message on the website and we will get back to you.
Victims of Bullying, Harassment, and Victimisation in the CSIRO 
I would like to know more about the current internal investigation in CSIRO by Singrid Higgins.
Anonymous
July 31, 2012
I sent a message earlier about the internal investigation. I am worried that getting involved in this, and exposing my experience would leave me exposed to being targeted, and pushed out. I am also wondering about whether you have any confidence that things might change.
cliffstrong@hushmail.com
Anonymous
July 31, 2012
I noted in the Canberra Times this morning that CSIRO will launch an independent investigation into bullying (http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/csiro-to-hold-bullying-inquiry-20130205-2dwx3.html). Megan Clark has the emphasis on ‘former employees’. I think this is a bit of a cop out on current CSIRO staff that have suffered in the past, or are still suffering in the current culture. I hope the organisers of this web site have some influence in expanding the investigation into current employees.
Anonymous
February 5, 2013
We have been contacted by CSIRO directly to advise of the announcement which is a positive step. I believe that this is the first formal dialogue held between Victims of CSIRO and the CSIRO itself.
Administrator
February 5, 2013
I also saw the Canberra Times and SMH article. I am a former employee of CSIRO and if it would help, I would be happy to put my 2 cents worth into the independent inquiry. Is this group coordinating the response or are individuals contacted directly? Thank you.
Evelyn
February 5, 2013
The following blog post, “Contact Us Victims of
Bullying, Harassment, and Victimisation in the CSIRO” illustrates that u know just what exactly
u are speaking about! I completely agree with your post.
Many thanks ,Jacob
http://bing.com
February 15, 2013
I’ve looked at the piece in the Canberra Times concerning CSIRO’s comments to Senate Estimates. Here is my take on it.
CSIRO says bullying claims are dodgy http://ozloop.org/profiles/blogs/csiro-says-bullying-claims-are-dodgy
Steve Davies
February 20, 2013
My experience relates to the Australian Securities and Invesments Commission. We have levels of over 30% of staff victims of bullying. The website APSbully gives a good indication of the culture at the corporate regulator. So much for setting an example.
Congratulatons on the strength of the “Victims of CSIRO”
Damien
February 20, 2013
The investigator now has scope to allow current as well as former staff. Also allows not just for the victim, but also witnesses to report bullying behaviour. And there is a choice about giving the investigator permission to give details to csiro or to keep them confidential.This is good steps. But why the CEO message to staff did not mention this welcome expansion of terms? One must go to the link to see. Perhaps many current staff who read the email and heard the previous restriction of only former staff may not follow the link because they do not realise the door is now open at least in phase 1. This should be given publicity to current staff.
Anonymous
March 2, 2013
The harassment bullying and other form of ordeals in CSIRO was only a practice session. The actual real one will start once the “Independent” investigation begins their job. The investigators are no less skilled in this field compared to their CSIRO colleagues. Need to be seen to what extent they will go to support CSIRO staff and provide a cover story for them.
Anonymous
May 24, 2013
I recon complainants block/reserve a bed in the nearest hospital. By the end of this ordeal they may end up right there. Not sure if hospitals provide 7 star deluxe facilities, eg. express checkin/checkout(of course with the doctors approval), heated swimming pool, al a carte restaurants, club lounge bar, golf course etc, but form the palace i come from all there are available. They call it a medical experience.
Anonymous
May 24, 2013
What will happen at he end? will those people who have perpetuated such blatant acts of harassment and bullying be brought to Account? The clear answer is
NO even if the investigation finds that senior managers indulged in harassment and bullying (which is unlikely considering the fact that those very people perpetuated such acts are controlling the investigation).
This investigation is a waste of time and public money. Its time minister starts retrenching senior people who have serious allegation of harassment against them and employ professionals in their place. There is no shortage of professional senior people in Australia.
In my opinion it would be best to Privatise CSIRO. When organisation are privatised senior management are held to account and such acts of Bullying and harassment will not happen.
Anonymous
March 15, 2013
I was at the top CSOF level of principal scientist position in CSIRO for over 5 years. I was recruited from abroad with all nice promises and soon after arrival, I was bullied, victimized by my line manager who knew exactly how to suck upto to upper managment and bully the people he managed. CSIRO was very greedy to get money from anyone outside the organization on a scale not even a private company would do. It spends so many millions on managment and time and energy on planning.Take the SIP process for instance which goes on for several months of plannIng only to be revisited again within a year. It pushes people to sense of fear and hopelessness if they donot succeed with external money but there is no freedom even for a senior scientists. Young scientists situation is horrible. For example, they could be forced not to publish any papers because of commercial interests or some one wants to take credit for their hard work. Matrix management structure broughtdown the staff morale and it made things very complex. For instance your annual performance assesment would have to be discussed with left and right hand side of matrix structure which could involve upto four managers and they all need to agree you have done well. if you didnot get along with one or more, then you are in big sh*t. I think the scandal with Novartis is only the beginning and testament of how far CSIRO staff can be pushed to fraud and plagiarism. There would be more things to come.
From One of the victims of CSIRO
Anonymous
Anonymous
April 16, 2013
Congratulations this websites in the news
Anonymous
April 16, 2013
so they also have their fraud with medications aswell! This shows their character! Not sure if there is any difference between them the the people who counterfeit the medicines made by Novartis! Not sure where they will stop.
Anonymous
April 17, 2013
In the Novartis cheating case i wonder if those in CSIRO who are involved in this have any idea what they are/were doing? They think they are smart by hoodwinking a large multinational for 2.5 million? Maybe they were laughing after the ripoff. Will Novartis continue doing business with CSIRO? Shouldn’t they have thought about the long term effect before venturing into this foolish idea( which is nothing short of street thuggery, there is nothing innovative in this ripoff). Now other large multinationals will be cautious when dealing with CSIRO.
Anonymous
April 17, 2013
Has anyone from the government cooling their heels behind bars? Never. Penal action in such cases is almost certainly ruled out. It is with this confidence that such people within CSIRO in collaboration with murky subsidiary outfits don’t spare even the medication industry. In terms of Ethics and commercial morality one may want to say the counterfeiters of the medication is a notch ahead. For one they don’t pretend to be innocent, in public at least, and are quite frank in what they do even when that is illegal .
Anonymous
April 17, 2013
What baffels me is the utter lack of sence to protect the reputation of CSIRO. Universities are much better in this regard. I can recollect a series of incidents of deceptive and misleading practice by a certain University and the VC Scrambled to make the compensatory payment of about 190K. The VC was eventually so very courtous and customer centric that he even called me on a friday evening to confirm that i received the Check.
This shows their commitment to protect their internation reputation including more importantly their registered agents internationally.
Anonymous
April 19, 2013
One poster writes “Has anyone from the government cooling their heels behind bars? Never. Penal action in such cases is almost certainly ruled out.”
Yes they can! Also for lying to an investigator another law. If you decide to report them do it with a lawyer because the AFP are political lapdogs who will do everything they can to try and talk you out of it including threatening you.They won’t do it if there is a lawyer in the room.
142.2 Abuse of public office
(1) A Commonwealth public official is guilty of an offence if:
(a) the official:
(i) exercises any influence that the official has in the official’s capacity as a Commonwealth public official; or
(ii) engages in any conduct in the exercise of the official’s duties as a Commonwealth public official; or
(iii) uses any information that the official has obtained in the official’s capacity as a Commonwealth public official; and
(b) the official does so with the intention of:
(i) dishonestly obtaining a benefit for himself or herself or for another person; or
(ii) dishonestly causing a detriment to another person.
Penalty: Imprisonment for 5 years.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/cca1995115/sch1.html
Slarty Bardfast
April 21, 2013
I agree they can and the law is very much available. But how many of common people will be willing to go through an ordeal of doing what is mentioned above? That is the point, not many. And the few who would agree to go through the ordeal are not going to get a medal for making the law enforcement officials to apply the law, if at all any they will get harassment.
An Anonymous
May 24, 2013
CSIRO management are relying on what can be “proven” – by way of hard evidence, ie documentation. The only way to beat these bullies is by litigation. Email trails will prove that CSIRO management are a corrupt bunch….just smartly dressed!
Anonymous
May 30, 2013
CSIRO is governed by policies – a set of standards it has agreed to work within. The Govt of the day has the power to stop funding organisations that do not update their practices and meet these standards. When greed kicks in, integrity and doing the right thing goes out the window. It’s up to the Govt now to show leadership and do the right thing.
Anonymous
June 6, 2013
Are you sure CSIRO is governed by policies? Policies are there yes, but is it Governed? Those policies that suite the senior management are applied, that too when they are in trouble, and the policies that could put them in trouble are subverted. In other words the senior management them self breach the policy. If anyone wants to learn how to mismanage an organization CSIRO is the place.
Anonymous
July 3, 2013
Agree with Anonymous. The whistle blower policy is subverted by intimidation whereas the grievance policy is purported to be applied where the policy is formulated in such a way that the grievance procedure is terminated when the employee is made redundant. So all the senior executives including at the highest level’s do is make the whistle blower employee redundant.
The complaint is “Buried”.
It’s a tactical brilliance but a strategic blunder. The Senior staff at the highest levels fail to factor in the risks at the strategic level. What will those many people do when they are pushed to the wall? They go to the government resulting in “victims of CSIRO” website and public dressingdown in newspapers.
Anonymous
July 3, 2013
If it were not the case then there would be no need for this website to exist!
Administrator
July 3, 2013
Workplace Bullying Draft Code of Practice – complete our short survey http://www.injuredworkerssupport.org.au/?p=7000 . Please feel free to post our survey.
IWSN
June 12, 2013
I worked for CSIRO in Moolap for 13 years, in 2001 I could take it no more because I had a Manager who had it in for me right from the start, I never got pay rises and he even dictated what I should do with my tea breaks and lunch hour….he was a constant bully, at one stage I had a supervisor who was in charge of me and this other person overrode the line of management demanding to know what I did on my days off….I was under so much stress and in 2001 there were redundancy packages going so I put my hand up, it wasnt what I wanted to do but for peace I did it…..in my experience that person was protected by upper management even though they knew he was in the wrong…..I loved my job and most of the people when I worked at CSIRO and it took one person to ruin that….shame on CSIRO for not supporting the victims….you support the bully with complete disregard for the victim….
Anonymous
August 14, 2013
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/technology/digital-leader-departs-csiro/story-e6frgakx-1226822934567#
another one gone
February 10, 2014
How much is really known about the current restructure? One of the purported aims is to simplify the structure and embed people WITH THE RIGHT BEHAVIOURS.
Sadly all 5 of the current Group Executives have retained their roles as new Sector Heads. Shameful.
The 22 Flagship Directors and Chiefs have received an invitation to express their interest in the 18 new Flagship Director and Deputy Director roles and a few roles in Commercial Services and Facilities. The process is closed to anyone not already in one of these roles. No job losses there.
The job losses don’t come until middle management where between 3 and 4 roles will be competed for by up to 12 people.
So bad behaviour at high levels is tolerated. Screw middle management and the level below.
Sad
March 17, 2014
CSIRO pays $3.7m to be told it’s bully-free
JARED OWENS
The Australian
May 20, 2014 12:00AM
THE CSIRO has sunk more than $3.7 million into an independent investigation of its workplace culture that found no major or endemic bullying at the federal scientific agency.
The review by former commonwealth ombudsman Dennis Pearce was launched in February last year in response to 11 allegations of bullying and harassment, one of which was substantiated. The review received 110 submissions alleging 130 different episodes of bullying, but found “no major problem of workplace bullying or other unreasonable behaviour” and rejected claims of a “toxic culture”.
It recommended two managers face investigation for suspected breaches of the public service code of conduct.
In a written response to Greens senator Penny Wright, the CSIRO said it had been invoiced by Dr Pearce’s law firm, HWL Ebsworth, for professional fees and disbursements of $3.74m.
A survey of CSIRO workers last year revealed half the workforce did not believe it was safe to “speak up”.
The CSIRO employs about 6500 people and a further 2700 are affiliated with the organisation, with about a third of staff holding doctoral degrees. It has an operating budget of $1.5 billion, about half of which comes from taxpayers.
Dr Pearce’s initial report noted some CSIRO staff were dissuaded from giving evidence by rumours the investigation was not independent. This had been spread by those who instead wanted a judicial inquiry. “There is no such thing as a judicial inquiry. A judge appointed to conduct an inquiry has no greater power than any other person,” it read.
bully-free status comes at a price...
May 20, 2014
Again to clarify this tired old reconstruction of the actual facts, Victims of CSIRO did not attempt to dissuade potential participants from engaging in the investigation process, we stated quite plainly that based upon our review of the Terms Of Reference published we could not support the investigation as being in the best interest of the majority of our members. We subsequently and quite clearly stated to our members that they should make up their own minds as to whether to participate based upon their own particular circumstances and after reviewing all of the available information. Victims of CSIRO quite reasonably provided a link to the investigator’s website and encouraged our members to review the material supplied by the investigator. We note quite distinctly that the investigator failed to provide participants with the opportunity to review the dissenting views raised by a number of concerned parties…
We are yet to receive any positive feedback from participants in the investigation process but we are ever hopeful!
Administrator
May 22, 2014
http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/outgoing-csiro-chief-megan-clark-ac-joins-rio-tinto-board-20141120-11q83p.html
she just could not wait to get out and where does this person of “the highest integrity” go?
To the direct competitor of her previous employer, BHP Biliton.
Anonymous
November 24, 2014
I have been experiencing discrimination at CSIRO after reporting sexual harassment and assault.
To ask for change as CSIRO I just created the petition: “Say NO to sexual harassment and assault of female scientists in Australia”
Will you join me in supporting this issue? http://www.thepetitionsite.com/122/574/917/say-no-to-sexual-harassment-and-assault-of-female-scientists-in-australia/
Anonymous
February 11, 2016