The issues are not new. Over the past decade, we have seen numerous reports and inquiries into allegations of bullying and harassment in the organisation.

Of course, it's not just ACT Health that is the problem. Many public servants, at some stage of their career, will be subjected to bullying or harassment at work. Public Service Commission data shows that, in 2016, nearly one in six public servants reported they were subjected to workplace bullying or harassment.

So what's wrong with ACT Health?

Without wanting to jump the gun on the independent inquiry's findings, I would suggest the reason we have seen bullying and harassment continue at ACT Health for decades stems from improper complaint handling. It sounds simple, but an effective complaint-management process can go a long way towards creating a more positive workplace culture in the first place.

Naturally, this begs the question of what effective complaint handling actually looks like. Without going into specifics, there are three characteristics that every effective public service complaint-management process shares.

First, complaints should be given the respect they deserve. In my experience, one of the most disheartening things that can happen to any employee, and one of the quickest ways to undermine a positive workplace culture, is for an employer to fail to take a complaint seriously. In some instances, employees can face a backlash, direct or indirect, for speaking out.

Employers risk breaching the Fair Work Act if they allow this. In Shea v TRUenergy Services (2014), the Federal Court confirmed that you are protected if you have made a complaint, even if it cannot be substantiated, proved or ultimately established, provided it is made in good faith and for a proper purpose.

The reverse is also true. Effective complaint-handling processes must be able to identify those complaints that have been brought unnecessarily or vexatiously, and deal with them (and the complainant) accordingly. This is essential in order to ensure the complaint-handling system is not misused.

Second, effective complaint-handling processes must comply with internal and, in the case of the public service, external policies and procedures. If a complaints policy says an employee who has been accused of bullying and harassing behaviour is to be given an opportunity to respond to specific allegations, then the employer should ensure this happens.

In a public service context, this takes on a particular edge. All public service entities must ensure they comply with all procedural fairness obligations when investigating allegations against an employee. The content of the public service's procedural-fairness obligations depends substantially on the circumstances in each case. However, it can be summarised as follows: an accused person must be given a reasonable opportunity to hear, and respond to, information that is adverse to their position. As a component of the principles of natural justice, this makes some intuitive sense: justice requires that you know the charge against you and be given the opportunity to properly make your case in response.

Finally, employees who have been accused of misconduct, including of bullying and harassment, are entitled to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. Though it sounds like a simple platitude, the presumption of innocence is a fundamental component of any effective complaint handling process.

Sometimes, examples of when an investigator has failed to comply with the presumption of innocence will be obvious: simply concluding that someone's conduct was bullying because they were not able to show that it was not bullying presumes that their conduct was actually bullying in the first place.

However, failing to comply with the presumption of innocence can also be less obvious, often in cases where evidence has been presented as part of the complaint that an accused employee cannot disprove. Investigators are not sets of scales: their role is not to see whether there is more evidence on one side or the other; their role is to see whether there is enough evidence to conclude that the alleged conduct happened. The simple fact that there is evidence suggesting that bullying happened, and insufficient evidence to refute it, is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a finding against an employee. If the evidence against the employee is not strong enough to overcome the presumption of innocence, it is irrelevant that the employee was unable to refute it.

Given all this, it's not so much of a stretch to suggest that organisations with effective complaint-handling processes, which include these three characteristics, often have fewer problems with bullying and harassment in the first place. In my experience, effective complaint handling can be the key to a virtuous cycle that improves workplace cultures generally.

What does all this mean for ACT Health? Changes must be made from the top down and from the bottom up. Managers must ensure that an effective complaint-handling process is adopted and followed at the executive level of the organisation. When ACT Health staff have regained confidence in the complaint-handling process, they will be able to start meaningfully engaging with these procedures and respecting its outcomes. The necessary cultural changes will no doubt follow.

John Wilson is the managing legal director of BAL Lawyers and an accredited specialist in industrial relations and employment law. He thanks his colleagues May Oboodi and Robert Allen for their help in preparing this article.