An electrical contractor who was ordered by the Fair Work Commission (FWC) to pay $11,400 to an unfairly dismissed employee has lost his application for a stay order.

Director of Smerff Electrical and self-declared ‘Nazi Sparky’, Simon Hickey, applied for a stay order to delay the original FWC decision taking effect until his appeal was heard.

He claimed there were numerous significant factual and legal errors “plus some stuff I didn’t like much” in the decision.

Deputy President Peter Sams said “It is unnecessary for me to rehearse the appellant’s grounds of appeal for the purposes of this stay application. However, the flavour and intent of the appellant’s grounds of appeal can be discerned from Mr Hickey’s answer to the question, why it would be in the public interest to grant permission to appeal”.

In his response, Mr Hickey submitted the following:

“In the public interest? First – how is it relevant to the proceedings that the public interest be factored into whether I get to appeal an incorrect decision made on mistaken fact. What have they got to do with it? Are they paying the 11 grand? Or is it more about letting the general public know that should they get sacked for any reason they should play FWC roulette and waste huge amounts of taxpayer funds. Days and days of their previous employer’s time – all in the hope their not fair I’m a victim and deserve free money mentality gets rewarded with a ching ching ching large cash settlement. This wouldn’t be in the FWC interests to generate more customers would it?

Next: how is it this decision generates the publicity that it did? Possibly something to do with the timing and whoever it is that coerced the decision from the commission based on an outcome desired by someone in the Qld Government? Decisions as routine as this one don’t generate publicity the way this one did. The secret anti PR squad staffed by Bulldyke Gestapo members is at work here again I am sure of it. Nobody out there in suburbia gives a rats about Giraffes dismissal. So why the coverage?

So: if the commission and the hidden puppeteer see fit to alter the statements of the defendant in the hearing, then base the decision on the new and improved statements that were somehow put in their place. Then subtly or openly send the decision about the ‘nazi sparky’ to the right people in the MSM so it gets picked up by media everywhere then they made it in the public interest. It is already there. The interests of justice dictate that an appeal be heard.

Therefore the appeal should be heard because the matter is already in the public interest through no fault or action of Hickeys.

Further: if no appeal is permitted and FWC awards the thief Giraffe this insane sum of money then Giraffe can expect to wait until the decision and its contents are compared to a recording of the hearing day. The numerous, serious errors are noted and tabled. When this occurs it will be obvious to anybody comparing the two that numerous, substantial errors of fact were made, and these were included in the decision provided. Therefore the decision is incorrect and therefore invalid. Whether the errors are deliberate or incidental is unimportant. The fact that there are so many constitutes grounds for an appeal, and some sort of enquiry as to how such obvious and important errors can be made.”

Deputy President Sams said he was satisfied Mr Hickey “raised whatever he wished to put in supporting his stay application”, however there was no evidence that he could not pay compensation to the former employee in the interim.

“[Mr Hickey’s] permission to appeal hearing will be listed before the Full Bench early next month. There is no basis to conclude, if the order is complied with, and [he] is wholly successful on appeal, that [the former employee] would not repay the amount ordered,” he said.

But Deputy Sams said an appeal would likely be unsuccessful.

“I am not satisfied [Mr Hickey] has established an arguable case for the grant of permission to appeal or appeal.”

“His prospects of success do not appear to be much higher than problematic, at best. This is so because his appeal grounds seem to be no more than his rejection of the Deputy President’s findings and conclusions and his refusal to accept her preference for the evidence of [the former employee] over his evidence.

“It would seem [Mr Hickey’s] stated determination not to pay anything to the respondent, is borne from his complete denial of having done anything wrong and his firm belief that the respondent is the ‘villain’ in this case. This is not a sufficient basis to grant a stay in this matter”, Deputy President Sams said.

Mr Hickey’s stay application was refused and dismissed.