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An employee would have been better off admitting to workplace misconduct as a "brain fart" instead of denying he ever engaged in it, the Fair Work Commission has ruled, finding he was fairly sacked for vandalising client property.

In unfair dismissal proceedings, the Commission heard that in September last year Wulguru Steel appointed four employees to complete remediation works to a client's fuel tank.

During the project, one of the employees was seen by a colleague dye grinding into the tank roof the image of a penis and scrotum alongside the words 'Skinny Pete', which was another worker's nickname.

According to the colleague, when he pointed out a few weeks later that the image was still on the roof, the employee said it could stay there and that he didn't care if he lost his job...