The Commonwealth Bank’s governance team is chronically under-resourced, has huge attrition rates and is swamped by excessive workloads, but the bank has done little if anything to address the issue, according to the woman in charge of the group.

CBA group governance executive general manager Kara Nicholls is suing the bank for allegedly seeking to fire her last week in response to “whistleblower” complaints she made to senior officers and chairman Catherine Livingstone about the bank’s failure to respond to repeated warnings on understaffing and workers’ safety.