The government departments with the worst rates of bullying
The latest public service census revealed 14 per cent of Home Affairs employees said they experienced harassment or bullying in the workplace, an increase of one percentage point since 2023.
Staff at Home Affairs have again scored the department worst for bullying and harassment, with new data showing the rate of poor behaviour has worsened.
Of the 16 departments and two major agencies analysed Home Affairs had the highest rate of bullying for the second year in a row.
Like last year, more than half of the perceived bullying went unreported.
The annual survey revealed public servants' attitudes on their agencies' culture, working conditions and leadership. It was the second year all 104 APS agencies were required to publish their census results.
The Department of Agriculture, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Veterans' Affairs had the next highest rates of perceived bullying at 12 per cent.
Meanwhile, Education experienced the most significant increase in bullying, at 10 per cent compared with 7.6 per cent last year.
Bullying and harassment increased marginally over the year across the entire public service. Overall, 10.5 per cent of staff experienced bullying, up from 10.4 per cent a year ago.
The Department of Defence, the Department of Social Services and Services Australia also performed worse than the APS average, with 11 per cent of staff at these departments having experienced bullying.
Home Affairs staff experience sabotage, verbal abuse
Of the 16,359 staff at Home Affairs, 70 per cent completed the 2024 census, marking one of the lowest response rates across the 16 departments.
The most common type of harassment or bullying was interference with work tasks (45 per cent), which included withholding needed information, undermining and sabotaging.
Verbal abuse was the next most common form of bullying (44 per cent), followed by inappropriate and unfair application of work policies or rules (32 per cent).
Of those who experienced bullying, 57 per cent said they did not report it.
More than a third (35 per cent) of respondents said they reported the behaviour and 8 per cent said it was reported by someone else.
Home Affairs wrote in its annual report it was committed to ensuring physical and psychological health and safety was embedded in the department's culture.
In the year to June 2024, the department introduced awareness sessions designed to eliminate bullying and harassment.
"The session pack supports leaders to have conversations with their staff about behaviour expectations and to foster a respectful and inclusive workplace," the annual report noted.
Where bullying is getting better and worse
Services Australia saw the biggest improvement in bullying incidents, falling from 11.9 per cent in 2023 to 11 per cent in 2024. The department had an 86 per cent response rate from its nearly 33,000 employees.
There were also marginal improvements at Social Services, Veterans' Affairs, Foreign Affairs and Trade and Infrastructure.
Education had, by far, the largest increase in perceived bullying between 2023 and 2024, up 2.4 percentage points.
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Verbal abuse and interference with work tasks were the most common forms of bullying (both 44 per cent) at Education, followed by deliberate exclusion from work-related activities (35 per cent).
Bullying also got worse at the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, where 9 per cent of staff experienced bullying compared with 7.4 per cent last year.
Treasury and the Tax Office had the lowest rates of bullying across the departments at 8 per cent, although both departments performed worse this year compared with 2023.
