Central Queensland University Paid Staff $1.3 Million Less

By Liam O'Connell

ABC Tropical North

Topic: Higher Education

Tuesday, 21 July 2026, at 2:49 pm

Central Queensland University has 13 campuses, including seven in regional Queensland.

In short:

The university is paying back over $1.3 million to more than a thousand staff. The staff did not get their full wages.

The underpayments started in 2012 when the university made a new agreement with its staff.

What's next?

The university has made a promise to check its payments regularly and improve its payroll system.

Central Queensland University must pay $1.3 million to its current and former staff. The staff were underpaid.

The underpayments happened because the university's payroll system was not set up correctly. The university told the Fair Work Ombudsman about the problem in April 2023.

Each staff member was underpaid about $1,250 on average.

The university said its payroll system had problems and could not handle some payments correctly.

One staff member was underpaid more than $63,000.

The university said its payroll system was not set up well, and this led to mistakes.

A union leader said the university should have fixed its payroll system earlier.

The union leader said the university usually fixes problems for individual staff but did not review its whole system until the ombudsman got involved.

The underpayments affected the university's teachers, administrative staff, and vocational trainers.

The university has made a promise to the ombudsman to follow the rules.

The university's leader, Nick Klomp, said the university will pay for more audits.

The university set up a special team to ensure staff are paid correctly.

The university's leader said, 'We did the wrong thing, and we are sorry.'

He also said some underpayments were due to complicated payment rules and some supervisors not knowing the rules.

The leader said the university will report to the ombudsman and improve its systems to prevent underpayments.

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