← all questions · Pay and money
Three jurisdictions have settled: Victoria $175m across 30 actions and 36 health services, NSW in the range of $230m–$300m covering more than 20,000 doctors for 2014–2020, and the ACT $31.5m for 2,200 doctors 213. Individual shares came in well below assessed losses. New actions are running.
Victoria. Thirty class actions against 36 health services, led by Gordon Legal and Hayden Stephens & Associates with Dr Gaby Bolton v Peninsula Health as the lead proceeding, filed March 2021. The Federal Court gave final approval on 31 October 2025: $175m total, about $135m to doctors, more than 12,500 registered participants, with assessments from early 2026 and payments expected mid-to-late 2027 24.
NSW. The largest underpayment class action in Australian legal history — more than 20,000 doctors, covering 2014 to 2020, settled in the range of $230m to $299.8m 13. Individual payout emails went out in April 2026, and they are where the sting is: doctors reported an assessed gross loss of $237,188 yielding a $47,417 share and about $31,000 after tax, and $106,500 yielding roughly $14,000 net 6. Registration closed more than a year before those emails; if you did not register, you are not in it 6.
ACT. 2,200 junior doctors, $31.5m, settled 2024 7.
Still running. A class action against St Vincent's Sydney covering up to 2,500 doctors was filed in February 2026, firms were investigating Queensland off the back of AMA Queensland's Resident Hospital Health Check, and Tasmanian junior doctors filed against the state government in September 2025 89.
What it actually proves. Award base understates hours worked, systematically and everywhere. Published research found 73.5% of doctors worked five or more unrostered hours a fortnight with only 15.6% claiming all of it 5. The settlements recovered a fraction of assessed loss years later — which is an argument for claiming contemporaneously now, not for waiting for the next action.
The counter-argument the sub keeps making. The gripe is not with the lawyers; it is that the employer kept most of the money and faced no penalty beyond a discounted settlement 6.
r/ausjdocs — community view, not policy; verbatim, cautionary beside positive where both exist, every quote linked to the comment.
I don't think most of us have a gripe with the lawyers, it's with NSW Health who essentially got away without having to pay in full for their wage theft.
Estimated Gross Total Loss = $237,188.10 Share = $47,416.94 payout after Taxes/Super etc -a little over 31k
Estimated loss $106,500isg, payout gross 21000ish, net about 14k. Bit of a joke for 5.75 years.
Pretty sure you missed the deadlines about 18 mo the mate haha
Asked 59 times on r/ausjdocs (title-regex count) · encoded by hand from the numbered sources, retrieved 12 Sept 2026; no AI wrote any of it. how the count was made
asked_count = posts in r_ausjdocs_posts.jsonl (19,145 posts, 2022-09-13 to 2026-09-12) whose title matches /class action|underpay|unpaid (overtime|wages)|settlement|back ?pay/i. Quotes are the highest-scoring comments from the April 2026 payout-email thread, chosen to show the gap between assessed loss and net share, with the 'the gripe is with NSW Health, not the lawyers' framing kept beside them.