Donna Wheatley given green light to proceed with sexual harassment claim in full

An experienced female firey has had a small win in her ongoing fight to hold her workplace accountable for more than two decades of alleged sexual harassment.

Hayley Elg

2 min read

January 18, 2023 - 11:46AM

The Melbourne City News

Former FRV Commander Donna Wheatley, pictured in 2012

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The state’s fire service has failed in its attempt to strike out a large part of a former senior firefighter’s claim that she was sexually harassed at work for more than 20 years.

Donna Wheatley has alleged she became a target for sexual harassment when she first joined what was then known as the Metropolitan Fire Brigade in 1998.

She was employed on a series of short-term contracts until 2003, when she was recruited as a firefighter.

She has alleged the conduct — including sexist and misogynistic behaviours — continued throughout her employment with the fire service, now known as Fire Rescue Victoria, as she climbed the ranks to becoming an Operational Commander.

Ms Wheatley stopped working for FRV in June 2021 and three months later she lodged an application with the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) alleging sustained sexual harassment at work.

Her application included “a detailed chronology of her claims of sexual harassment and other incidents of discrimination”, along with the identities of those involved and “the impact and consequences” on her.

“The allegations paint a picture of serious and sustained harassment and abuse of the applicant in the course of her employment,” VCAT member Mary Cameron said.

But in June last year FRV applied to strike out parts of her application about conduct alleged to have occurred before 2015.

Donna Wheatley and her six-year-old daughter Emily. Pictured in 2003 when she was one of only two women to graduate.

It did so claiming “lengthy delays” meaning witnesses were now “unable or unwilling to give evidence” and that “the nature of the claims is such as to raise competing factual accounts of events which occurred a long time ago”.

It also stated there was a “lack of objective evidence” to back-up her claims and that there was “no apparent reason” why she could not have come forward earlier.

In response Ms Wheatley said she had made internal complaints during her career but that they were “either dismissed or not acted on”.

She described fearing the impact on her career if she lodged a complaint given she was only one of a small number of female firefighters.

Ms Wheatley submitted she felt she was able to cope with what she was experiencing for most of her career and focused “on trying to bring about organisational and cultural change in the workplace”.

However, she claims the “accumulation of trauma” led to a “significant psychological injury that only materialised later in her career”.

Ms Cameron listed her reasons for dismissing FRV’s application to strike out part of Ms Wheatley’s claim earlier this month.

“In my view, the applicant has provided a plausible explanation for the delay,” she said.

“During the course of her employment with the respondent she pursued a career which she could not have pursued with another employer, because FRV has a virtual monopoly on the employment of firefighters in Victoria.

“It is clear from the applicant’s submissions and other material before me that the applicant’s career was very important to her, that she was deeply committed to it, and it follows, reasonably, that she did not want to jeopardise it, which she thought she would, by making external complaints about her experiences of discrimination and harassment.

“The applicant has further submitted that she continued to try to resolve her concerns internally to the organisation but was repeatedly ignored or discouraged from doing so.

“This is another reason for the delay in bringing her claims in an external forum.”

The case will return to VCAT for a directions hearing.