Crackers behaviour by Fair Work deputy referred to police

Fair Work Commission deputy president Gerard Boyce has been referred to NSW police for setting off firecrackers during a post-Christmas party staff gathering on the tribunal’s Sydney office balcony.

Fair Work Commission deputy president Gerard Boyce.

Fair Work Commission deputy president Gerard Boyce has been referred to NSW police for setting off firecrackers during a post-Christmas party staff gathering on the tribunal’s office balcony in Sydney.

The Australian can reveal Fair Work general manager Bernadette O’Neill has referred Mr Boyce’s conduct to NSW police after he let off two “throwdown” firecrackers at a staff get-together in December.

Under NSW law, it is illegal to buy, possess or discharge fireworks unless a person has a single-use licence or holds a pyrotechnician’s licence.

Ms O’Neill has also referred Mr Boyce’s conduct to Comcare, the national authority for work, health and safety.

The referral came a year after Mr Boyce, appointed by the ­Coalition, came under criticism for displaying “scantily clad” ­figurines in his chambers.

Sydney-based commission members, their associates and tribunal staff held a Christmas lunch function at an Italian restaurant on December 11 before gathering for afternoon drinks on the ­commission’s 14th and 15th floor balconies.

Witnesses claimed several staff were “heavily inebriated”, including one male worker who vomited near the balcony.

Mr Boyce has told colleagues he attended the lunch for about two hours, consuming two glasses of wine, before returning to his ­office and joining colleagues on the balcony about 5.30pm.

He brought with him the firecrackers, which he told colleagues he had purchased from a “reject shop”.

According to sources, he walked to a corner of the balcony and threw down the firecrackers. No one was injured and his conduct was reported to Ms O’Neill.

It is understood Mr Boyce, a barrister, was told of the referral last Friday.

Sources said Mr Boyce had engaged a queen’s counsel and will defend the complaint.

One supporter said while Mr Boyce’s conduct was childish, the referral was an overreaction and part of a “malicious” campaign against him.

Last year, Mr Boyce was forced to remove his collection of Anime-style female figurines, including at least one that was “scantily clad”, from his chambers after complaints from staff and intervention by senior colleagues.

He later installed a “fake” surveillance camera in his chamber after a photograph was taken by a “commission member” of the ­figurines.

Labor’s industrial relations spokesman Tony Burke on Monday criticised Mr Boyce’s conduct, saying commission members were “supposed to be resolving disputes, not blowing stuff up”.

“This is a guy who gets paid $470,000 a year, but thinks it’s OK to decorate his office with sexualised figurines, spy on his colleagues and let off firecrackers in the Fair Work office,” he said

Mr Boyce, a former NSW manager of the Australian Mines and Metals Association, was appointed to the tribunal by the ­Coalition.

The Australian revealed the fig­urines in Mr Boyce’s chambers included miniatures of a bodysuit-clad Scarlett Johansson character and Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn from Suicide­ Squad.

In response to the internal controversy, Mr Boyce purchased a life-size cardboard cut-out of US president Donald Trump for his ­Sydney chambers. He later removed it.

Under the commission’s code of conduct, Mr Boyce is unable to comment to the media.

The commission declined to comment on Monday.