Ex-Sri Lankan diplomat owes domestic worker $500,000 after failing to pay wages, court rules

Australian Financial Review  - An Australian Federal Court judge has slammed the Home Affairs Department for failing to properly scrutinise a Sri Lankan diplomat who confiscated a staffer’s passport and gave her just two days leave in three years.

Sri Lanka’s former deputy high commissioner to Australia has been ordered to pay $543,000 in unpaid wages and interest to a domestic worker and now faces a large fine for breaches of employment laws.

Himalee Arunatilaka, who served in Canberra from 2015 to 2018, denied her employee, Priyanka Danaratna, minimum pay and conditions during time in Australia, the court found.

Justice Elizabeth Raper found Ms Danaratna worked from 6am to 10pm, seven days a week and was only allowed two days off in that time after she burnt her hand with cooking oil.

Over the period, she was paid just $11,200 – around 75¢ an hour – which was sent to Sri Lanka. Ms Danaratna also was denied permission to leave the Canberra residence alone, and had her passport confiscated.

In addition to handing down a damning judgment for Ms Arunatilaka, Justice Raper suggested that if the Home Affairs Department had taken a closer look, “Ms Danaratna’s employment may have been very different”.

“It is not without concern that it would have been clear to [Home Affairs], by reason of the materials provided ... that Ms Danaratna was not going to [be] paid nor enjoy the protections under the Award or the FW Act,” she wrote.

“There was no apparent attempt to conceal the arrangement by Ms Arunatilaka. It is perplexing that the department, in the circumstances, did nothing and granted the visa in the circumstances.”

Himalee Arunatilaka currently serves as Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) in Geneva. 

The case is one of several recent examples where diplomats from countries with poor employment practices have been caught failing to comply with employment laws and have been hit with big penalties in Australia.

The Australian Federal Court last year ordered India’s high commissioner between 2015 and 2016 Navdeep Suri Singh to pay $189,000 in unpaid wages and interest to Seema Shergill, who was found to be working in “slave-like” conditions in the chief diplomat’s residence.

Justice Raper also ordered Mr Suri to pay a $97,200 fine for wage theft, the maximum amount allowed.

Mr Suri brought Seema Shergill to Australia when he started in 2015. When they arrived in Australia, he confiscated Ms Shergill’s passport and confined her to the family’s Canberra residence.

Neither Ms Arunatilaka nor Mr Suri defended the legal actions against them, and it is not clear whether the claimants in either case will ever see a cent of the amounts awarded.

The cases were only possible because the Federal Court recognised that the residual immunity granted former diplomats does not extend to employees in their direct employment, who are covered by Australian fair work laws.

Clayton Utz pro bono Partner David Hillard, who led both matters along with Canberra barrister Prue Bindon, said these were not isolated cases.

“It is the second Federal Court matter in less than a year involving domestic workers at diplomatic residences in Canberra,” Mr Hillard said. “Domestic workers in foreign diplomatic residences are among the most vulnerable and isolated workers in Australia.

“It is hard to conceive of someone in 21st century Australia literally being trapped in a job for three years and earning 75 cents an hour.

“This decision … confirms clearly that these workers have rights in Australia, and that senior diplomats cannot hide behind diplomatic immunity when it comes to keeping their servants under slave-like arrangements.”

Ms Arunatilaka was in 2023 appointed Sri Lanka’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva.