Wildlife rescuer wins work battle against Terri Irwin’s Australia Zoo
A wildlife rescuer at Australia Zoo, the Queensland attraction run by Terri Irwin and her children Bindi and Robert, has successfully challenged her job classification before the Fair Work Commission. Erica Henning, who joined the park in 2023, argued that her duties as a rescuer involved specialist skills and independent decision-making that warranted a higher grade than the zoo had assigned her, and the Commission ultimately agreed. The ruling highlights broader questions about how demanding, specialised animal-care work is valued and classified in workplace awards.
Ms Henning's responsibilities include responding to injured native animal callouts, driving 4WD rescue vehicles, sedating animals with blow pipes, calculating drug dosages, and training new staff, often with limited supervision. Despite Australia Zoo's argument that such work was largely reserved for senior grade-three rescuers, Deputy President Nicholas Lake sided with Ms Henning, rejecting comparisons to untrained members of the public and finding her role involved genuine complexity. As a result, she has been reclassified from grade two to grade three under the Amusement Events and Recreation Award 2020, a change currently worth an extra 89 cents an hour.
- Australia Zoo rescuer Erica Henning won a Fair Work reclassification case
- Commission ruled her duties met "specialised animal care" standards
- She moves from grade two to grade three, gaining 89 cents an hour
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Wildlife rescue is one of the more visible roles at Australia Zoo, the Queensland tourist attraction founded by the late Steve Irwin and now run by his widow Terri and their children Bindi and Robert. Rescuers like Erica Henning respond to calls about injured native animals, often working with limited direct supervision and using specialist skills such as sedating animals safely and calculating drug doses.
At the centre of this case is how such jobs are graded and paid under the relevant industry pay scale, known as an award, which sets minimum conditions for workers in sectors like tourism and recreation. Disputes over job classification go to the Fair Work Commission, Australia's independent workplace tribunal, which decides whether an employee's actual duties match the pay grade they have been given.
This matters beyond one zoo, because it touches on how physically demanding and skilled animal-care work is recognised and rewarded across the industry, and could influence how similar roles are classified elsewhere.
Both sides, in good faith
The strongest fair case each way — we don't pick a winner.
The case for
Advocates for Ms Henning's position would argue that pay classifications should reflect the actual skill, autonomy and risk involved in a job, not merely a job title assigned by management. If a worker is routinely trusted to sedate wild animals, calculate drug dosages and train colleagues with minimal oversight, fair treatment and workplace safety both demand that her grading and pay recognise that responsibility, rather than allowing employers to under-classify skilled roles to limit wage costs.
The case against
Australia Zoo and those sympathetic to its position could reasonably argue that maintaining clear, consistently applied grading structures protects fairness across the whole workforce, ensuring higher grades are reserved for staff with the seniority, training or experience genuinely intended by the award's tiers. Employers need the ability to define role boundaries based on their own operational judgement and training pathways, and an external body substituting its view for management's on day-to-day job design risks setting a precedent that unsettles staffing structures well beyond this one case.