CANBERRA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- One in five Australian Border Force (ABF) staff were bullied or harassed at work in 2017, a survey has found.
The survey, the results of which were published by Fairfax Media on Tuesday, revealed that 22 percent of ABF staff were subjected to bullying or harassment in 2017 and 21 percent experienced discrimination.
More than one third of respondents to the internal survey, which was distributed to the agency's 5,745 staff between May and June, said they wanted to leave the agency.
Of the 22 percent of staff who said they were bullied or harassed in 2017, approximately half said the misconduct took the form of verbal abuse.
However, 64 percent said they did not report the behaviour, citing concerns over whether their complaints would be treated confidentially. Only one in five respondents believed that the ABF's senior leaders were "of a high quality."
Those who experienced discrimination said that it was mostly on the basis of age or gender.
Roman Quaedvlieg, the inaugural ABF Commissioner, was fired in March following a nine-month disciplinary investigation into allegations that he modified policies to advantage his partner for recruitment into the force.
The survey results have cast further pressure on the workplace culture at the ABF after it was revealed on Sunday that a young female trainee who took her own life in 2016 left a suicide note detailing difficulties at work.
The ABF, which merged customs, immigration and border protection, was established in 2015.
