MELBOURNE: An 18-word text has landed a Gladstone Regional Council electrician in hot water.

Zane William Byrd is facing the sack for intimidating and causing distress to two colleagues when he texted one of them to find out if they had complained about him to human resources.

He tried to blame his autism diagnosis for his actions, claiming it should excuse his behaviour.

“Hey, I heard you & Tina put a complaint into HR about me for something?? Is that true?” Mr Byrd wrote to Caet Wessling at 6.20am on November 20 last year in relation to herself and electrician Tina Draper.

Details of the workplace drama were revealed in a decision handed down on August 21 by Queensland Industrial Relations Commissioner John Dwyer, throwing out Mr Byrd’s bid to get an injunction to block council from sacking him.

Mr Byrd argued his text was a simple factual inquiry to Ms Wessling who he regarded as a friend, and denies he was trying to intimidate her or cause distress.

Mr Byrd has been suspended on full pay since November last year, after the council told him it was contemplating sacking him.

The ruling means the council can restart disciplinary action against him.

Mr Byrd unsuccessfully argued that the council’s disciplinary action was a reprisal for his making a public interest disclosure about safety concerns about Ms Draper’s work.

He had earlier told Ms Wessling via SMS that Ms Draper was “dumb as dog shit and f***ing everything up”.

Mr Dwyer concluded the intimidating text message to Ms Wessling was “glaringly obvious misconduct” and the council were justified in disciplining him, adding Mr Byrd must face “some consequences” from his employer for the intimidating text message to Ms Wessling even though he did not intend to intimidate her and Ms Draper.

“Mr Byrd’s diagnosis cannot excuse his conduct,” Mr Dwyer wrote.

“His disclosed Autism diagnosis may well explain the direct and unfiltered nature of the message. While I am sympathetic in the circumstances of this explanation, it can only mitigate his conduct,” he wrote.

“In my view … it is capable of being characterised as likely to cause intimidation and distress,” Mr Dwyer concluded of the November 20 text asking if they had gone to HR.

“I also accept that Mr Byrd may not have intended the SMS to be received in that way nor understood the impact it might have on Ms Wessling or Ms Draper,” he wrote.

Mr Dwyer concluded that the SMS Mr Byrd sent to Ms Wessling on 20 November was a plausible explanation for the council to suspend Mr Byrd and make him face a disciplinary inquiry.

The 20 November text was triggered by Ms Wessling and Ms Draper making a formal complaint – about Mr Byrd’s alleged bullying – to the council’s human resources department on 19 November, the day before the intimidating text.

Ms Draper alleged the bullying related to a minor workplace incident when she was doing electrical work on a clarifier at the Tannum Sands water treatment facility on 14 November.

She gave unchallenged evidence to the QIRC that the incident was fixed relatively quickly on the same day, so the clarifier was able to restart.

But Mr Byrd claimed he was concerned about some aspect of the electrical wiring that he shut the clarifier down and isolated it, and reported the incident to Rodney Burge, the team leader of the water network after the pre-start meeting on 18 November.

Within hours of Mr Byrd’s meeting with Mr Burge, Ms Draper told the QIRC that her colleague Ms Wessling showed her a text message that Mr Byrd had sent Ms Wessling weeks earlier on 23 October 2025.

“Yeah … Exactly what we talked about … We understand it … this is why big meets don’t work … Tina is dumb as dog shit and f***ing everything up … I wish she would shut up,” the text stated.

Mr Byrd unsuccessfully claimed that his report to Mr Burge was of a safety breach and should therefore be protected as a public interest disclosure.