*** Culture of Fear and Compelled Silence *** - Anonymous employee AustralianSuper Employee Review

A culture has been established in which employees understand that speaking up carries career risk. Financial pressure, job insecurity, and opaque decision-making are exploited to maintain silence and compliance. This is not accidental. It is a predictable outcome of leadership behaviour and has allowed misconduct to continue with minimal resistance. For staff who are paying off their mortgages will perform the highest level of flattery towards their managers to keep their jobs. Shameless! Senior leaders (Execs, Heads, Senior Managers) are not merely failing to prevent this conduct—they are actively enabling and normalising it. This includes: - Ignoring or suppressing repeated staff complaints. - Failing to investigate known patterns of managerial misconduct. - Retaliation (direct or indirect) against employees who raise concerns. - Protection of senior figures despite clear, repeated warning signs. There is an informal but entrenched pattern of forcing employee exits without transparency, due process, or redundancy obligations. Observed practices include: - Selective and inconsistent application of performance frameworks. - Imposition of unrealistic, shifting, or retrospective KPIs. - Deliberate exclusion from meetings, projects, or communications etc. - Sustained pressure to resign rather than engage in forma processes. - These actions demonstrate a deliberate strategy to induce resignation rather than manage performance lawfully and ethically.