Sacked Anti-Gay Uniting Church Minister Loses Unfair Dismissal Claim

An anti-gay former Uniting Church minister who was sacked over his statements opposing same-sex marriages has lost his case before the Fair Work Commission. 

Reverend Hedley Wycliff Atunaisa Fihaki, who is currently a minister with the Presbyterian Church, claimed that he was unfairly dismissed. Fihaki was appointed as a minister at the Mooloolaba Uniting church in 2013.

A 2018 Uniting Church National Assembly resolution, changed the church’s stand on same-sex marriages and allowed gay marriages under certain circumstances. In a series of public statements on social and mainstream media between January 2019 and August 2021, Fihaki opposed same-sex marriages. 

The Church sacked him last year, following which he approached the Fair Work Commission.

Dismissal Valid

Fair Work commissioner Paula Spencer in a ruling earlier this month dismissed Fihaki’s claim that he was unfairly dismissed and held that he was “not an employee” of the Uniting Church. 

The church claimed that the “ministry role within the Church creates a covenantal or spiritual relationship between the Church and the Minister. It is not an employment relationship.” 

The commissioner further held that even if an employer-employee relationship was proven, the dismissal was valid. 

“In consideration of the evidence before the Commission, in the alternative, if it is that Reverend Fihaki is found to be an employee, then I find that there was a valid reason for the dismissal,” the commissioner said. 

The Fair Work Commission pointed out that there was material that Fihaki “publicly departed from and significantly recanted the teachings of the UCA in his statements to the media.”

Twenty-Three Breaches

“On this basis, multiple complaints were made by his congregation to  the  UCA Synod  Committees regarding  this and  23  breaches  of  the UCA Code of Ethics and Ministry Practice were made out,” Commissioner Spencer said, adding that Fihaki “did not refute that he made those statements as part of the disciplinary investigation undertaken by the UCA.”

The charges against Fihaki included his signing an open letter to the Prime Minister on religious freedom and his media statements. 

In  2019, Fihaki publicly opposed the Church’s same-sex marriage resolution and claimed that many from the Church were planning to join the dissident group Assembly of Confessing Congregations that he chaired. 

“The new decisions that have been made by the [Uniting Church] seem to suggest that it can be other lords, other sexual practices and still be okay… We are saying no, that’s not right, according to our understanding of scripture and the basis of union,” Fihaki told ABC.